Only One
by sarin555
Summary: "It's not the decision of the Messiah of when his sacrifice for mankind would end. Rather it was only with his god approval that his duty could end. Even then, other gods might not think so..." Multi-crossover.
1. 1

Only one.

 **A/N: This fic was inspired by several others too numerous to name, but I assume you people will figure them out as you read through two major inspiration would be 'The Traveller' by Ultimate Alcatraz and 'A Demon Among Devils' by The Crimson Lord.**

 **As you might have guess, this is multi-crossover fic with multiple fictions be anime, cartoon, movie, game, comic, book, etc. Releventivity of each fictions to the story is vary. Some is just few paragraph cameo, some just a chapter while a few will stay permanently.**

 **Also I need a beta, so if you're interested; contact me.**

He did not expect this. He could not even imagine this happening to him; not in this manner at least. For the longest time, he could feel nothing, do nothing. He was nothing. Then absurdly, he was revived, in an instant, and was sitting at a table with a cup of tea and a cake prepared for him.

Surrounding him was darkness, neither warm or cold, neither bright or dim, neither evil or good. The only thing that held the chair and table in their place was the white platform he was on, else he would be floating in this eternal darkness.

And of course, there was his host. A man sitting across him on the opposite side of the table, dressed in a Victorian black suit, with his hair hidden completely by a comically long top hat and a monocle over his left eye. The boy would have presumed he was a stereotypical Englishman if it was not for his long, ancient Egyptian Pharaoh-like beard contrasting the overall image he tried to present himself as.

The blue-haired boy eyed the man with caution and suspicion. His last memory was sacrificing himself to become the seal… Yes, the seal that would stop Erebus from reaching Nyx and destroying humanity. Was this man his savior? As if in response to his thought, his host chuckled.

"Goodness me, no. I'm not your savior, Mister Arisato." The man moved his hand and grabbed hold of the teapot before pouring the content into his cup. Instead of tea, an unholy black substance filled the cup. Once the cup was filled to the brim, the man set down the pot and took a sip of his 'tea'. "I suppose you have questions, and now that you can finally assemble your thoughts together, I can begin my explanation."

Minato did not reply, only listen.

"Now that you have remembered what had transpired before your arrival here, I must first admire the show you had put on for me to watch. But let's not dwell on that; the program, sadly, is already over."

'Already over? No…' Minato thought. The idea that his freedom would undo the Great Seal filled him with dread.

"No. Erebus and Nyx did not merge, I have made sure of that; there is still so much for me to watch from that world. Now, as you can see — and feel — I have not only broken you from the Great Seal but also found a substitute in your place, so you need not concern yourself with that any longer." The man paused and took another sip.

Minato still looked on, unable to shake off his dread. This man gave him an uneasy feeling, something he didn't feel so much. He was surprised that his usual apathetic-self was being melted from inside out before this creature.

"Yes, there's a reason for that," the man responded to his thought. "But don't worry too much about that, you have other things to worry about, mainly," the man paused, "the price of your freedom."

A chill tingled down his spine. He'd never felt that before — not even when he had summoned Thanatos, the personification of Death.

"I freed you for a reason, Mister Arisato." Another dreadful pause. "It's because you gave me so much drama to watch. I'm simply enjoying you too much, and I felt that it was unfair for one of my favorite among… favorites to be stuck to the wall and no longer entertain me. So here you are, ready to put on a show for me once more."

Minato tensed up, not liking where this was going.

"What do you want from me?" he finally spoke, firmness in his tone.

"As I had said, entertainment. I am not going to bond you to a stage or anything — well, not a stage as the mortal would know it anyways. I will drop you into… let us say a cluster of dimensions, yes the Cluster, that had a weak barrier between each other, to the point that he had to separate them into a singular sphere in order to stop the breach from spreading further."

"Who is 'he'?" the bluenette asked, not out of curiosity, but caution. He was not so shocked at the revelation of other dimensions; the Sea of Soul, where all of his Persona resigned, was, after all, another dimension in its own right.

"None of your concern," the man answered, less emotion in his tone than Minato thought humanly possible — and he had been pretty far down that road once. "Back to our ordeal. I will drop you into one of the dimensions in this cluster. There's a threat from one of these worlds within this cluster that would threaten to destroy every dimension within. And that's where our fun begins, Mister Arisato."

The man started to grin, unnaturally wide; almost like a Western cartoon.

"I know you wanted to go home. Yet I know you would help those who are in need if you cross them. I knew you will stop the threat, you're heroic like that. These worlds are filled with monsters, villains, heroes, authorities, and innocents. There are so many threats going on around you, you would have to figure which one is the dimensional threat. After that, how are you supposed to stop it? Finding allies among local heroes? Infiltrating villain hierarchy? Oh, there are so many things you could do, Mister Arisato."

The man was grinning madly. Now his face started to melt, his hellish grin still stuck on his face as the melted flash started to coat the white teeth. Despite the sense of fear that crept around the edge of his heart, Minato did not flinch. He did not look away but face this entity head on.

"If I succeed?"

" **Oh, you don't get it, Mister Arisato,"** the 'man's' voice began to distort. **"Survive or die, win or lose, I get what I want. You either die when this threat starts its rampage or win and try to find your way back home. One way or another, I am entertained. But I am not without pity though, which was why I chose to tell you all this instead of keeping you in the dark. Ah, one more thing..."** He held up a finger.

The platform beneath him began to expand, growing twisted arms of light that moved toward the void and robbed the darkness of its territory. Soon the world he knew was consumed with malevolent light, with only one blind spot of darkness where the man was supposed to be.

 **Find the martyr. She might help you. Might . I will visit you later.**

xxxxx

Minato's eyes shot open to meet the sun peeking over the horizon. He got up from his position on the ground. His head swung wildly at his surroundings, searching all around to try and determine where he was.

He was lying down right next to a road. Judging from a sign and empty environment, with few farmhouses in modern Japanese architecture, he was at least still in Japan; in a rural area to be specific.

That was when he noticed something weighing down on his lap. He gazed down. There were several documents, all in a single plastic folder, and a gun — no, an Evoker. A tool used to materialize a being that was the manifestation of human thought, Persona. A single paper was glued to the folder.

'A. I have prepared all the necessary documents for you. I would prefer that you get to what this world has to offer as soon as you can rather than having to deal with some knick-knack like these. You are already in the computer system as well, like you used to be, though you will find that 2016 is much more different than 2010.'

Minato started digging through the folder. Everything was in there: His birth certificate, his insurance papers (though he noted it was now with a different company), his high school diploma, and everything someone needed to become a legitimate citizen. He also found an envelope with one million yen inside, much to his shock.

He went back to reading the note just as a car drove by.

'B. Lesson time. There are people in every dimension that are capable of using Persona or having ties to Arcana. But the dimensions within the Cluster had no Sea of Soul of its own so this possibility had been lowered extremely, I would say roughly one in a billion is capable of using Persona.'

His eyes widened at that ratio. It was so few that he did not believe the letter for a second, but soon decided to dismiss the whole issue for the moment. He could test that claim on his own.

'C. I leave you a million yen to start with. Get yourself a little something. Consider it a payment for the impact of your actions that are still felt to this day in your dimension.'

That would explain the envelope. Then he noticed a 'P.S.' at the end.

'P.S. The paper will burn itself after you have read this in ten seconds, so pull it off before your headstart burns to ashes.'

As soon as he finished reading, every letter on the paper formed into a number.

'10… 9…'

Minato acted. He yanked the destructive paper away and threw it on the ground. After ten seconds passed, the paper was covered in flame. The boy stomped the fire until it was extinguished. He would rather not be causing any wildfires today.

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Now what? He looked at the closet sign. Apparently, the closest place from here was no other than the capital of Japan, Tokyo.

'Guess that's where I should start,' he thought. Minato opened the envelope with a million yen and took out a ten thousand yen bill; there's no way he would walk all the way to Tokyo from here.

xxxxx

Minato eventually arrived in Tokyo. On his first day, he went to the bank to check on his account, only to discover all the savings he had were still there. He deposited eight hundred thousand into his account. No one suspected him of anything troublesome, strangely enough.

Next, he needed a place to live. He looked for an apartment for a while, before finding one in the outskirts of the middle-class part of Tokyo. Far from the noisier part of city life; his kind of place. He used the money he didn't deposit to assure the landlord he could pay for the place, for a while at least. He needed to find work.

Without a university degree, he would not find any good jobs in the rigid — no, hazardously competitive job market of Japan. (Not that he truly cared about finding a job that much.) He wanted something in the middle of the road, something he at least wouldn't hate and get good enough pay out of.

For now, he took odd jobs to sustain himself, without having to withdraw his savings. He also considered the possibility of going to university or college, but that could come later. This was not the entrance exam season.

As for other development, he slowly felt the connection to the Sea of Soul renewing. And after a few days, he had called his Persona into the world. Comfortingly it was his first Persona, Orpheus, who had answered his call. Slowly his bond to the Sea became stronger and the voice of its inhabitants could be heard by him, yet none of them knew of who the man that had freed him.

For now, he saw no reason to call upon his Persona, except on a rare occasion to remind himself that he still had some purposes in this world: To stop whatever tried to bring its downfall. Without this purpose, he would rather still be the Great Seal, knowing that his suffering still protected his friends.

All of his friends in SEES, the people of Tatsumi Port Island — he missed them and it saddened him that he could never see them again, but one he missed more than others.

'Aigis...' He thought of her every night; his best of friends, his protector, his lover. 'Aigis. '

But in the end, he had already made peace with that fact when he became the Great Seal. It was something he could easily drown out with jobs and hobbies, but what seemed to help him the most was thinking of what he must do here. That was both a reminder and a question.

Something told him this place isn't as plain as meet the eye. He was proven correct one a night while he returned to his apartment.

xxxxx

Minato was walking back to his apartment with a grocery plastic bag in hand and his trusty earset over his head. If there was one thing he liked about 2016, it was that there was so much music he had to catch up with. Not a single day went by where he didn't listen to something new — new to him at least.

On the way though, he saw a bush rustling. He stared at it for a few seconds to see what came next. He did not expect a midget with a rice straw package for a head to step out of the bush; it also smelled like natto. The bluenette remembered this little thing from a children's book about Japanese folk spirits, the yokai; this one was called Natto Kozo. [1]

He stared at it and it stared at him. The sweat seemed to spread across its straw head-if that was even possible.

"You can't see me, right human?" it asked nervously.

Minato nodded. The yokai stiffened.

"You nodded because you didn't see me right?" it asked.

Minato raised an eyebrow and then shook his head, his cold expression still on his face. Why would he have nodded in the first place if he didn't see it? Now it was really sweating, made worse by the fact that its sweat also smelled like natto, the most pungent food in Japan.

Finally, after a full five minutes of a staring contest with the little creature in silence, it spoke again.

"You are not going to leave, are you?" it asked again, still nervous and somewhat fearful. He shook his head. There was another pause. "Then I will just have to kill you!" it said, pretending to lunge at him. The boy did not even flinch. At this, the yokai knew it had one option left. "Screw this!" it said and ran off.

He followed. Maybe this could be his first clue as to what he must look for in this world. Chasing the little thing wasn't that difficult, especially with its short legs, but Minato kept his distance from it. He should let it lead him to where it was heading. Maybe he would find something more that way rather than interrogating the little guy.

That was his original plan until Natto Kozo bumped into something and fell on its back. It was something… strange… It also looked like…

"A Shadow?" Minato muttered to himself, trying to comprehend the creature it front of him.

It took a form of a woman with green skin that seemed to be almost half-mantis.

"Well, what do we have here? A little yokai and a little boy." She took a threatening step forward. "How shall I deal with you? I didn't even know yokai exist. Maybe I should bring you back to the professor — he would be interested in you. Maybe you could come too little boy, so you can be just like me: a Daimon." [2]

Well, at least he knew this wasn't a Shadow. Minato was a little bit relieved by the fact that the possibility of something like the treacherous Tower of Tartarus would appear had been decreased. Still, whatever this thing was, he could feel an obvious sign of malevolence coming from it.

A Persona within the Sea of Soul began to faintly whisper to him. Strange, he did not recognize her.

She said that the creature in front of him had possessed an innocence and a minimal amount of holy energy was required to kill it. She emphasized on 'minimal', apparently understanding the nature of some holy Personas within the Sea of Soul.

As he communed with her, the Natto Kozo ran back to him and hid behind his leg. It snapped him back to the reality with a shout. "Human! Do something!"

He supposed he could use some combat exercise. It had been a week now since his last fight. He needed to hone his skill or else he would get rusty. He took out his Evoker.

"A gun? Against that thing? Really human?" the yokai asked sarcastically. But the disappointment turned to shock when he pointed it at his head. "W-what are you doing?!"

"Oh come on now, being Daimon isn't that bad. You would just lose your freedom to think and get a lot of power in return," she half-offered, half-joked. He could feel that she wouldn't care if he took his own life one way or another.

A Persona with the ability to cleanse this creature had already answered him. She was a bit of an overkill, but anyone would do. Now all he had to to do was pull the trigger.

"Persona."

He felt the familiar sensation. Something reached deep into his mind. It wasn't pleasant or terrible, just feeling. Then the chilly liquid spilled over the other side of his head along with broken barrier of his conscience. The feeling of something burst forth followed, then the sense of connection with his Persona followed.

He smiled. In this case, it was a pleasant feeling.

 **I am Thou, Thou art I.**

A being made of pure sunlight materialized, her light immediately illuminating the night as if it was the middle of the day.

 **I am one of the first three gods. I am the mother of this land.**

A long katana was in one hand and its sheath in the other. The blade was deadly sharp.

 **When I abandoned this land, the people and gods alike suffered in the dark.**

A fan-like shield strapped to each of her wrists, connected by a string of hanging fan-blades behind her that reflect her light, intensified its shine.

 **I bring forth the dawn and all its glorious blessing.**

The Natto Kozo stumbled back, shaking before fainting at what he thought he could never witness in his life.

 **I bring forth the Sun and all its burning might.**

The Daimon stepped back in fear and awe. It knew that it would stand no chance, but fear held it in place. It was unable to run.

 **I am Amaterasu.**

The third observer, whom none could see, could not believe what was happening before her eyes.

 **You shall pay dearly for daring to corrupt one of my people, creature.**

She pointed her katana at it, the light embedded within the blade. She held it up in the air and unleashed the power of the Sun.

xxxxx

 **A/N: And that's it.**

[1] From anime ' **Nurarihyon no Mago**.' It's a common yokai, but this one is specifically from this franchise.

[2] I will be frank, I had never watched **Sailor Moon** so all the info is off from the wiki. If the speech pattern are off or if something is wrong, tell me about it I will fix them; but please don't be rude. She was an OC villain, or rather fodder with be better word.


	2. 2

There is only one.

 **A/N: Nothing here for now.**

Makoto Kino knelt down to check on the woman who was just freed from the Daimon. Sailor Jupiter felt a bit bad with herself that she didn't step in to fight this time and let other handled it; but when you saw the Goddess you were taught to worship since childhood, you couldn't help but be stunned on the spot.

The woman was fine, but she was more concerned with the blue-haired boy who had summoned the Sun Goddess. Who was he? How could someone possess that much power? So many questions. But he was already gone, walking away once he had finished cleansing the Daimon with the Goddess.

She sighed. Now there was the matter of whether or not she should tell the others. They would probably laugh at her first, but she was sure they would come around. After all, there was evidence — big evidence. She looked around, observing the surroundings; everything within about one kilometer of her was charred. Walls, streets, trash cans. Strangely enough, no trees or houses were harmed.

She got up and carried the woman away from the scene. She would rather not let this innocent woman be blamed for all this. Then they would investigate—the Sailor Scouts would get to the bottom of this.

xxxxx

Natto Kozo arrived back at the Nura House, the headquarters of the greatest yokai clan in Japan, the Nura Clan. It passed through the main gate and into the corridor of the ancient mansion. It was far into the night, so not many yokais were around when he returned. They were either out patrolling the clan's territory or sleeping.

It must find him, its supreme commander. Not Rikuo, the grandson; no, not on this matter. He must report this to the grandfather, Nurarihyon—the commander of all yokais.

It stumbled through the traditional wooden corridor. The task proved rather difficult after what it had witnessed. The light she emitted, it weakened him. He felt like he would faint again when he thought about it.

"Hey, Natto Kozo, are you alright?" a voice called to him in concern. He turned around to spot Kubinashi, a handsome yokai with his head floating above his body. "You look pale. What happened to you?" the blonde asked.

"K-Kubinashi, I-I must speak with-" He was cut off when another voice called him.

"Hmm? What is it Natto Kozo?" It turned around and met eyes with the person it was looking for.

"C-Commander," it cried, running toward him and collapsing right in front of his commander. Nurarihyon managed to catch the little yokai before it hit the floor.

"Oi, Natto Kozo! Kubinashi go get a doctor!" the ancient yokai commanded. The younger one only nodded and went away. "Hang in there, old pal."

"C-Commander, I-I saw her. T-The light, i-it was h-her, the G-Goddess," it managed to utter before slipping back into unconsciousness, leaving Nurarihyon puzzled at its words.

xxxxx

Minato pressed '3' on the elevator panel. The boy felt like he might have overdone it back then, but as long as the possessed woman was unharmed he was fine enough with the result. Amaterasu had gone back to the Sea of Soul, leaving him a warning to tread carefully.

It appeared there was more to this place as he had suspected. But this 'Daimon' was not among Japanese mythology as far as he was aware of. Since that small yokai fainted, he decided to leave it be; it probably didn't know much anyways.

Amaterasu said it would be weakened by her light. They might not be inherently evil, but the yokais still represented savagery of nature and too much holy power could cause them harm.

The elevator dinged and brought him back to the present. When the elevator doors slid open, and he was greeted by another tenant: A woman with light-red hair in a short ponytail, a pair of glasses and an overall average appearance. Her name was Kobayashi if he remembered correctly. She lived next door actually.

"Good evening," the glassed woman greeted as she walked past him into the elevator. He nodded as a reply.

He went back to his room, set his grocery down on the table, took anything that needed freezing into the refrigerator then threw himself onto his bed. He had taken a bath before went out for the short grocery trip, so he would just skip to sleep, not bothering to change.

Tomorrow he would try to look more into either yokais or Daimon, and maybe try to find a permanent job while he was at it. After thinking for a bit more, he finally slipped into the dream world, where he could finally rest.

xxxxx

The morning had already arrived in Tokyo and Minato had prepared himself to go on his quest. His choice of clothing remained largely the same though he had ditched the bow tie and any school symbols. This was to avoid confusing people that he was still a student. Then again, there was a fashion in which people dressed in school-like clothing. [1]

After breakfast, he left his room and went for the elevator. There, he encountered Miss Kobayashi again, though he noted she was a bit uneasy today. Neither of them spoke anything and they went their separate ways once they reached the ground floor.

The bluenette decided to check on where he had met the yokai last night. He might get something more from there. On the way, he put on his headphones and started watching the morning news, another possible way to find out what was going on in this world.

"Today, a new evidence regarding an ancient civilization had been discovered in Bhutan."

Change. That didn't concern him.

"-the Republicans have elected their nominee for presidential election and it appears prime candidate, Senator Steven Armstrong, has won with a historical majority of 96% among the Republicans and Conservatives. He would be running up against the Democrat candidate, Lieutenant Funny Valentine. The Poll shows that Valentine was already ahead of Armstrong by 32%-" [2]

Change. Politics. Also who the hell named their kid Funny Valentine?

"-the residents woke this morning to discover that their neighborhood was charred black."

Ah, that was his doing. He put too much power into that area attack.

"While the authorities are still investigating the cause, the locals suspect that one of the magical girl groups that protect Tokyo might have conducted a battle here."

' Magical girl?' Minato was left a bit surprised, but from what he had been through, only mildly. Considering the yokais existed, magical girls could be a possibility too; despite how contrasting the two were. He could try to ask the Persona who informed him last night about the creature, but that might not be worth the effort.

He had tried to summon the Persona who had informed him of these Daimon. He only received a shape pain within his mind. Moreover, the movement within the Sea of Soul seemed to rage much more fiercely than usual—something was happening in there.

Minato switched to music as he began searching magical girls on the internet. It was not a reliable source, but it at least it was a start. Apparently, there were various groups of these magical girls all over Japan and even some parts of the world. They were seen battling monsters of an unknown source, the info never seemed to agree on the name. Beside those, anything else looked like nothing more than rumors.

As if he had timed it, when he had finished with the magical girl topic he was back at where he had found the Natto Kozo. It seemed to be an area connecting to the larger wild area outside of Tokyo.

Considering he might encounter more yokais, he chose Amaterasu to anchor to his soul, ready to come out as a Persona if he called her. He stepped into the bush and into the forest, ready to fight if necessary.

xxxxx

It was noon in the city of Tokyo and everyone in the metropolis were scrabble to find lunch before their break ended. Even among school students, this was the case. One such case was at Juuban Municipal Junior High School.

"Are you sure you aren't dreaming last night, Mako?" Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury in her school uniform, asked her peer.

Right now three of the Sailor Scouts were having a private conversation while having lunch in a more isolated part of their school. Makoto decided to tell her three closest friends about the incident last night.

"I told you it was true! I saw it with my own two eyes!" she said pointing at her eyes with each of her hands.

"But a blue-haired boy summoning the Goddess of the Sun? Are you sure that Daimon didn't play tricks on your mind?"

"Don't you remember the news about a whole part of town being burned? That was the evidence," Makoto retorted.

"Could you have been fighting with the Daimon and then something happened?" Ami persisted, continuing to be skeptical about the claim.

The two continued to argue until the third member in the conversation decided to stop them.

"Enough!" Usagi—Sailor Moon, the leader of the Sailor Scouts—shouted at the two. She was loud enough that the two had to put their hands over her mouth to silence her. "Sorry," the blonde apologized, "but you two shouldn't be arguing like that."

"Well, I saw what I saw."

"Well, I think the Daimon tricked her."

"Look, Daimon or not we should look into this. Whatever incinerated that neighborhood is still out there. Let's meet up with Rei and Minako after school and see if we can find something, okay?" The others nodded in defeat. In the end, neither of them win. "Alright then let's eat!" she shouted again before started digging through her bento. Her friends could only smile tiredly at their teammate's sudden change in attitude.

xxxxx

Back at the Nura House, Natto Kozo had already recovered and explained what he found to Nurarihyon and his grandson—the current supreme commander of yokais—Rikuo Nura in his human form. He told them all of it, from the human who could see through his invisibility, to the strange monster that was neither yokai or spirit, and then the summoning of the Goddess.

"Are you sure you weren't drunk, Kozo?" the long-headed yokai asked.

"I know what I saw, Lord Nurarihyon," The ancient yokai was surprised that his old friend would address him so formally after spending several centuries together. This meant it must have been serious. The old man stroked his chin, pondering on what to do.

"I have no idea about the Goddess, but I've got some clues on the other monster," Rikuo spoke up.

"Really?" His grandson nodded.

"It might be one of those monsters that appeared on the news. You know the ones that magical girls always come out to fight," the half-yokai speculated.

"Oh, them. Hmm, maybe that was what you saw?"

The small yokai shook his head.

"The monster maybe, but certainly not the boy," it insisted.

Nurarihyon held his hand over his mouth, thinking. Then an idea came to him.

"Get me Gyuki and any free clan members. I've got an idea of how to look into this," the old man said with a mischievous grin.

xxxxx

Minato had explored the wild since morning now and he still couldn't find anything so far. Though on the bright side, the grove was rather calm and relaxing. It was a shame he couldn't play any appropriate music along the way, having to keep his guard up.

As he stepped into a clearing, however, he noticed something. The trees around the clearing were pushed down by some immense force and there were four large footprints implanted onto the ground. He scouted the clearing further. He noticed something reflecting the sunlight through the bush. He moved over to discover it was a medieval sword.

Seeing no reason to leave it there, his hand reached for it. As soon as the tip of his finger touched the surface of the handle, he felt the emptiness within the weapon. He blinked, then a ghost of a smile appeared on his face.

This was something quite rare. He was determined to hold on to it.

His moment of satisfaction was interrupted when his stomach growled. It was already past noon and his high metabolism had been demanding him to go find something to eat for a few minutes now. He walked back to the way he came, back to civilization.

Behind one of the trees, a blonde girl in maid outfit was hiding and observed the blue-haired boy from afar. She wouldn't have been that odd if the girl didn't have a pair of beige two-pronged horns and a green tail.

"Dammit, I knew someone would find that sword, but I didn't expect it to be this soon," she muttered to herself. "There's no other choice. I will just have to steal it from him when he isn't looking. My magic will keep me invisible, so it shouldn't be a problem," she uttered her plan out loud with a mischievous grin; a comical display. She slowly followed the boy.

xxxxx

"Are you sure this is the best way to deal with this situation, commander?" a man with long black hair asked the ancient yokai.

"We will have to wait and see to know that, Gyuki," Nurarihyon told him.

They watched as a boy with short brown hair, though still long enough to cover one of his eyes, seemed to blur into existence. He got a small creature with a miniature baby body and an eyeball for a head sitting on his shoulder. [2]

"Isn't that the famous Kitaro?" one of subordinates Nurarihyon had brought with him asked.

"Yes, it was him. We're not really on good terms, but I decided to hire him for the case. He's very good at playing detective and maybe I can finally get rid of him for good," the yokai commander explained.

"Sir, when did you come into contact with this boy?" Gyuki asked suspicion in his eyes as to when his superior had made this enemy. He might not be at the main house all the time, but if the clan had a feud with an individual he was sure to have at least heard of it.

The commander faked coughing. "Well, anyways let us follow him. Is Tofu Kozo back yet?" The supreme commander asked for his underling who was tasked with tricking Kitaro into investigating this incident.

"I am here, commander!" the one-eyed yokai in child body shouted from the back of the group.

"Alright then, let's-"

xxxxx

"-GO!" Usagi cheered.

"I still think this is unnecessary," Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, voiced her opinion.

"I agree," Ami joined her.

"Do we have to be here too?" Artemis, the magical cat who was in Minako Aino's, Sailor Venus, arm, thriced that along with Luna, the other cat.

"Look let's just try to find any clues, okay? The sun is setting, so it'll be a great time to start our investigation," Makoto calmed the others. They did not protest further.

The Sailor Scouts moved out from where the Daimon was cleansed last night and tried to find any clue or signal about the mysterious boy.

Eventually, they discovered a footprint leading up into the wild area. Since that was the only clue in the surrounding area, they decided to follow it and hope that it was not a false lead.

xxxxx

As the bluenette strolled through the jungle, another observer decided to join in beside the maid.

"Is that the boy Tofu Kozo reported to us, father?" Kitaro asked the eyeball that was his father.

"Yes, he matched the description. But I am skeptical about him being a yokai hunter. He didn't set me off as that kind of person." The son only nodded at his father's advice. "Let's follow him for now and see if he does anything bad."

The two were also unaware that they themselves were being tracked as well. Among the tree branches were the Nura Clan, following the yokai peacekeeper, but they had now dismissed him and stalked the blue-haired boy as they had originally intended.

"That boy matches Natto Kozo's description perfectly," Nurarihyon remarked.

"Could he really do what Natto Kozo said he could?" Gyuki questioned.

"Again, old friend, we will have to wait and see," the supreme commander moved as the boy was starting to get out of sight.

Up high into the clouds, a little girl—no, a dragon disguised as a girl with white-lavender hair, blue eyes and a pair of horn and a small tail was flying above the forest, looking for someone.

"Where could Tohru-sama be at the time like this?" The hour was indeed growing late. The sun had already vanished from the sky at this hour and the nightlife of Tokyo was beginning to emerge.

As she kept on looking, she spotted him: A boy with blue hair. She wondered for a second what a human was doing in the middle of the woods at this hour. Then she spotted a sword in his hand, a sword made by gods to slay dragons.

Her young mind began to spring up an imaginative drama to explain why the boy was owning that sword. Maybe he was a dragon hunter, and maybe he had attacked Tohru-sama and wounded her! Maybe he was tracking her right now! She would not allow this.

In mid-air, she transformed into her feathered dragon form and dived down at high speed, intending to start off her attack with heavy impact from her landing.

Back on the ground, Minato was becoming aware that he was lost. Strange, he normally had a good sense of direction. No matter, he only needed to follow where the light shone from above the treeline.

Amaterasu shouted out.

Dodge!

Minato rolled aside before something landed on the spot where he was a few moments ago. The impact sent debris and dust up high into the sky, signaling anyone else in the area...to come and see the fight.

xxxxx

Hayato Furinji, the master of the Ryozanpaku Dojo and dubbed by the martial art world as "The Invincible Superman", turned to observe the pillar of dust that had surged above the forest. [5]

He smiled to himself. Whenever there was the kind of force capable of creating something like that it ought to have quite a fight follow and he intended to watch it. Maybe he could scout out a potential apprentice for the Dojo; Kenichi could use a fellow meatshi- he meant student.

With that the Elder jumped through the branches at high speed, intending to see this fight before the good part ended.

xxxxx

"W-wah, what?!" Momiji Binboda, the 'God' of Misfortune (though she was more like a divine servant than a god) yelled as she found the rock she was sleeping on shaking from some kind of impact. [6]

The blonde woman observed her surroundings to discover a pillar of dust from a little distance away, but not enough that she didn't feel the impact.

Under normal circumstance, she would ignore it and go back to sleep, but curiosity got the better of her. She sighed at herself for neglecting sleep after a hard day at work and flew over to the site of the pillar.

xxxxx

"What was that?!" Ami asked as she felt the ground shaking.

"It's from over there!" Artemis said and pointed his paw at the dust pillar over the horizon. The group only looked at it with amazement.

"It could be that boy," Makoto claimed.

"Whatever the case we would probably need our power," Rei said, and the others nodded in agreement.

They took out their own Star Power Stick and transformed into the well-known Sailor Scouts. Once the light from the transformation subsided, they did not waste any time and headed toward the dust pillar as it settled.

xxxxx

Minato stood up from his kneeling position. He waited for the cloud of dust to settle to get a clear view of what had attacked him. Where he once stood was a dragon covered from head to toe with feathers.

It stared down at him, looking down with as much malice as she could muster, but for Minato he could feel no malice because it was fake. He calmly dusted himself and stared back at the dragon, right into her eyes with his stoic expression remained unchanged.

The two stared at each other for the longest time, long enough for many curious spectators to get a good spot to observe the fight to come.

xxxxx

'Dammit Kanna! Why are you here?!' Tohru resisted the urge to move out of her hidden spot and drag Kanna away but held herself back as it would have made things worse.

She would wait for now. Then when the time came, she would go out and snatch back both the sword and her friend, then run away. The human was likely panicking on the inside and would run away anytime now.

xxxxx

"Is that a dragon!?" Sailor Moon yelled, forcing her teammate to put their hand over her mouth.

"Quiet down, Usagi, or it will hear us," Sailor Venus whispered to her friend.

"Should we help him?" Sailor Mars asked.

"No," Sailor Jupiter surprised everyone with her answer. "He will summon her again, just watch."

Sailor Mercury sighed, "Alright, but if things get bad we will jump in, okay?" Jupiter nodded.

xxxxx

"Should we help him father?" Kitaro asked the eyeball.

"Hold on, something tells me there's more to that boy than meets the eye, let watch for now." Kitaro was surprised.

"What? But what if the dragon kills him?" His father did not reply. Kitaro signed in defeat and could do nothing but watch the fight.

Up above the treeline, the Nura's yokais watched the dragon and the boy as they stared at each other.

"Damn, is that a dragon?"

"It is, but it's western."

"What is it doing in Japan?"

"Deport them!"

"Now now people, settle down," Nurarihyon commanded and his underling obeyed. He turned back to observe the inevitable fight, keen on seeing if Natto Kozo's claim was true.

xxxxx

"Hohoho, a dragon, eh? I haven't seen one for a while now," the Elder of the Ryozanpaku Dojo said to himself while stroking his beard. He would normally help out if someone was in a situation like this, but the boy did not look like he would back away. It would be quite interesting to see how this played out.

xxxxx

Momiji Binboda looked on, unamused at the sight before her. A dragon attacking a human? This was what the commotion was about? She sighed. Well since she was here might as well enjoy the fight or the slaughter.

xxxxx

Minato stared at the winged beast and it stared back with its blue eyes. He analyzed the creature before him. It was rather small compared to other dragons within the Sea of Soul, but nevertheless, like all dragons, it was still much bigger than he was.

He did not know if it wanted a fight or not, after all, he did not feel any real ill intention from it. The two stoic beings looked on at each other, neither doing anything.

The silence was finally ended when the dragon said to him, "Where is Tohru-sama?"

"I don't know who that is," he replied, ignoring the fainting sound of 'It can talk?!' from the bush nearby.

"Don't act like you didn't know it. You are a dragon hunter, aren't you? You're hunting Tohru-sama, aren't you?" Now the bluenette noticed the dragon's voice was rather child-like.

'Is this a young dragon?' he wondered.

"I'm not a dragon hunter and I don't know who this Tohru is." He was forced to dodge when the dragon tried to pounce him.

"Liar! Where is Tohru-sama?!"

Minato sighed at the stubborn dragon. Some of the Personas within the Sea started offering to slay it for him. He would rather not let it get to that point.

You could try to scare her, she is but a child.

Amaterasu suggested.

I shall be your sword, under a condition.

Minato now got what she was trying to say. He focused, letting the power of the goddess that took hold within him to transfer into the sword he had found. The sword was no ordinary blade; despite being well-crafted, it lacked soul, something that its maker put into the blade to mark it his own. Many would look at this soullessness in disdain, but for Persona users it was a gift, for they could fuse their Persona with the weapon and create something much more...powerful.

He felt a tug in his mind as Amaterasu fused with the sword in his hand. The sword began to change form as if it was put back into the foundry and hammered again by the blacksmith.

Before she faded from his mind completely, Amaterasu reminded him of their deal that she would only be confined temporarily in the sword. For Persona being confined into a weapon was like being put in prison, it was not a comfortable feeling even if it was just temporary.

Once he could no longer hear the voice of the Sun Goddess, he looked down at the blade before him. The sword had now morphed into a legendary weapon found within the body of a legendary beast in the time of legend.

Its name was Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. The gift from Susanoo, the God of the Storm to his sister, Amaterasu, in order to settle an old feud.

The steel gleamed with the golden light of the Sun as if it was made of the light itself. The dragon was taken aback by the change in both appearance and property of the sword. But he needed more than a weapon.

As the goddess was already in the blade, he couldn't call her without recessing her from the Kusanagi. He needed another Persona to anchor to his mind, ready to be called upon if things turned really bad.

He searched for anyone find for this fight, somebody with speed, stamina and durability to help enchanted his own. But all those who were willing to answer were those who thirsted for dragon blood.

Then, one answered, a reptile and a vile creature in its own right but not the scale serpent of the sky or the dragon killer and devourer that wished to be called upon. He might also add it was also an overkill, then again so was Amaterasu. He let it slither into his soul, enchanting his body and power, and awaited the calling in there.

He focused back on the young dragon. Her eyes only stared at him in what he assumed to be between determination and awe.

She acted.

She spat a fireball in his direction. He swung the Kusanagi and cut the fireball in half before it could reach him. Kusanagi's unique power was it could control the wind, something very effective against a flying dragon. But Amaterasu had given it another unique property.

He held the sword up above his head.

"Maragidyne."

He swung down the sword to the ground. It made contact and sent out an arch of light, aiming at the dragon. She dodged aside, letting the light hit the tree behind her, and it exploded into a pillar of fire up in the sky. Most witnesses were either stunned or impressed by the display. Calling out a legendary sword was one thing but managing to do that was another.

Kanna ran around her opponent trying to circle him, but he sent another wave to create another pillar, blocking her path. She tried to run back, but he sent out another wave, this time he heard a faint 'What the fu-' before the attack made contact.

Now the young dragon had nowhere to run. With those feathers that adorned her body, it would not end well for her to run past the wall of fire.

Minato moved in for the endgame. He took his time making his way toward the dragon, tried to look as intimidating as he could, which was not difficult considering his default expression. He had even let his Persona emit its malevolent intention into the battlefield to further the goal.

He reached the youngling. He noticed she was shaking a bit.

"Do you yie-"

He was cut off.

"WAAAHHH!" the dragon cried, literally crying with her mouth open and tears dropping from her eyes. "Tohru-sama! Kobayashi! Save me!"

Minato blinked, actually everyone (even the two Personas) blinked.

He was quite shocked to see a dragon crying. All the dragons he ever saw, as Persona, were majestic creatures with pride in their mind first and foremost.

Yet here he was, looking at another dragon crying. Minato supposed he did overdo it.

He recalled Amaterasu from the sword, letting the pillar of fire die, including the fire it had spread throughout the woods. The blade returned to normal. He sent the goddess back to the Sea. He could hear her trading some insults with his current Persona as she went.

He walked over to the dragon. Her head was on the ground level, still crying out loud. He moved to the side of her head and stroked it gently.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Minato said softly as he calmed the dragon.

Her crying toned down into sniffing before she finally looked at him with her bright blue eyes, tears still holding in her eyes.

"Really?"

The boy nodded, wanted to smile to ease off her feeling, but could not muster it with that serpent in his mind telling him he should have finished it.

A magic circle appeared in front of her face. The light engulfed her and she shrieked. Once whatever spell she cast was done, a little girl stood in the place of a mighty dragon. She walked up to him before bowing her head.

"I'm sorry for attacking you." Minato nodded. "I thought you were a dragon slayer because you have that sword." She pointed at the weapon in his hand.

"Why would holding this weapon make me a dragon slayer?" That was a genuine question on his part, without Persona this was nothing more than a regular sword; unless there were some magical enchantments in this world he wasn't aware of.

"My friend was hurt by that sword," she said with a blank expression. Now he got it. It was a genuine mistake, he might have assumed the same if he was in her situation.

"I see. Don't worry, I just found this sword today. I wasn't the one that hurt your friend." Kanna nodded again.

A rumble interrupted their conversation. At first, Minato thought it was his stomach, but the rumble came again and he discovered it came from both of them. Minato cast his Persona back into the Sea of Soul, and finally managed to give Kanna a smile, a smile in which she returned.

"Want to go eat something?" he asked the little dragon girl. She nodded. Both of them strolled back to civilization together, intending on finding something delicious to eat as soon as they could.

They left, abandoning the trail of people who expected more, or wanted more.

xxxxx

[1] Real fact, there is branch of fashion in Japan that dress in a school-like uniform. Can't remember what it's called though.

[2] Purely fictional, don't get trigger please.

[3] Kitaro is from **GeGeGe no Kitaro,** it doesn't have any real connection with Nurarihyon No Mago, but Nurarihyon appeared in both story so I took that idea and ran with it.

[4] Tohru, Kanna and Kobayashi are from **Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.**

[5] Hayato Furinji is from **History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi.**

[6] Momiji Binboda is from **Binbougami ga.** Don't worry she will be a side character in our story and neither will her fiction.


	3. 3

Only one.

 **A/N: Early Merry Christmas, guys. All the story I cross will be listed at the end unless I had already listed it.**

After their little rumble, if one could even call it that considered how one-sided that was, the two hungry people made their way back to civilization in search of food. With Kanna's dragon nose, she followed the trail of the most delicious cuisine among abundant smell of food in the air of the capital city. Minato followed her, trusting the little girl.

They eventually ended up at a diner called 'Restaurant Yukihira'. The red-haired teen who acted as a temporary owner was about to close the place when the two arrived. He was too ethical as a cook to turn down hungry people. [1]

He cooked them what he could from the remaining ingredients of the day. Despite being in just a bowl portion, the food left the two satisfied. Actually, this was one of the best food he had ever tasted. Which was saying something for Minato as he had tasted high-class cooking from Mitsuru's maids many times. It was almost on par with Shinjiro's cooking.

He offered to walk Kanna back home. The street of Japan might be the safest in the world, but even then there were still some loose screws, serial killers and sick fucks wandering around; better be safe than sorry.

Imagined his surprise when she walked toward the area of his apartment. At first, he thought she will just be passing by, but when she entered the district his apartment was located, he started to believe she might be living where he lived.

She screamed 'Kobayashi' when she pleaded, maybe it wasn't a coincidence since his neighbor also had that name. His suspicion was confirmed when she stopped in front of his apartment complex, _their_ apartment complex.

"Thank you for taking me home, mister.," she bowed again.

"Actually, it's my home as well."

"Ah, I see. We will see each other more then. Maybe I could introduce you to Kobayashi too," she said.

"I met Kobayashi before. She lived in the room next to me," he gave a pause. "You live with her?" she nodded. "Do you mind if I speak with her," Kanna shook her head, he nodded.

The two went up the building together. Kanna led him to her home and pressed the doorbell. A familiar woman with red hair came to answer.

"Kanna, where have you been? I had been out looking for you an- Arisato-san?"

He was not surprised she knew his name. The name tag strapped next to his door should be pretty obvious.

"Can I come in?" the boy asked. Kobayashi stared at him with suspicion. She looked over at the lavender-haired girl who nodded to her. She sighed.

"Alright," she moved away from the doorway and let the two in, "Kanna-chan you can have the bath, I already take mine."

"Yay," Kanna cheered, but in the manner that was no different than when she normally spoke, before moving into the apartment casually. The red-haired woman motion for Minato to enter and he obeyed. The two end up sitting on the opposite side of the dinner table. Neither broke away from their default, emotionless face.

"So how did you meet with Kanna, Arisato-san?" the guardian of the girl seemed to be wary around the blue haired boy.

"I fought her in her dragon form," the answer hung there for several minutes. Then Kobayashi slammed her hands on the table and stood up.

"WHAT?!"

Minato shrugged. He knew it was not the fact that Kanna was the dragon that shocked the woman, after all, she let her horns popped out once she entered her home. So he presumed it was either because he fought her or that Kanna revealed her identity to him.

"Calm down, neither of us was hurt," he tried to calm her down, seeing the redhead extremely distressed face.

"You did not hurt her are you?" She repeated what he had said only in question form. Minato shook his head, there was a small pause; now Kobayashi had calmed down and sat back in her chair, "Did she hurt you? Why did she attack you?"

"No, I am fine. She attacked me because saw me holding this," he pointed at the sword he placed on the table leg.

"Wait, I remember that sword...vaguely. I was drunk," Minato nodded, understanding, somewhat. "Someone stabbed Tohru with that. I was drunk so I wasn't aware she was a dragon and I pulled it out then….let's just said she and Kanna are now living with me.

Minato was a bit surprised. First, at the story of the dragon and human living on equal term, he found that amusing considered how prideful most of the dragon was. He could hear some of his dragon Persona sneered from the Sea of Soul. The second was how honest Kobayashi was. He might be her neighbor but he was still a stranger, yet she let he knew about her situation. He continued to talk with her, getting to know a bit more about the dragon and her life with them.

The older woman began to explain all of his questions, though he could feel her withhold something from time to time. As their meek bond grew by the talk, he felt something familiar. At first, he did not know what it was until some of his Personas whispered to him. They all told him the same thing, for they could feel the same power that had connected them to him in the past.

 _ **The Arcana: Temperance.**_

'Ah, Bebe. My old friend,' he thought back to the time fondly spent with that French exchange student. The one who had held the characteristic of The Arcana: Temperance within his soul and the one Minato had become friend with.

Minato thought of the past so much so that he was lost in his thought.

"Um, Minato-san?" Kobayashi called him, seeing him space out.

Minato snapped back. He stopped questioning her. Realizing what just happened, he needed time to review this knowledge.

"Thank you for explaining Kobayashi-san, but it's already late so," he gestured at door.

"Ah right, let me see you out," she said. Both of them got up and ready to leave but Kanna had finished taking a bath and came back in her pajamas. "I will go tuck you in, Kanna-chan. Let's me see Minato-san out first."

"Goodbye," Kanna waved her hand. Minato nodded. She went into her bedroom, waiting for Kobayashi.

"See you again, Minato-san," Minato nodded as a reply. Kobayashi gently closed the door. Once the door completely shut, he made his way back to his room; ready to hit the bed.

Before he entered his apartment, the elevator 'ding'. He glanced at who had come and found a woman in a maid outfit, looking wore out with a minor burn on both her skin and clothing. The bluenette ignored her and went into his room.

xxxxx

The morning came and his routine continued. Since this was Saturday maybe he would stay at home a bit longer today, he wasn't beyond being lazy from time to time. He might start looking for a job in the afternoon. His peaceful weekend was interrupted by his doorbell. Minato got up and went to answer.

At the door was Kobayashi, Kanna and that girl in maid outfit he saw last night.

"Good morning, Minato-san," Kobayashi greeted.

"Good morning, Kobayashi, Kanna and…"

"This is Tohru," Kobayashi introduced moved her hand toward the girl in a maid outfit.

"The one who got stuck by the sword?"

"Yes, and I got stuck again last night when you fought Kanna," Tohru answered him with disdain.

"Ah, so you're the one who had been following me yesterday," Minato realized, much to Tohru's shock that he knew she was following him.

"Really?" Kobayashi exclaimed, surprised. "Did you really do that Tohru?"

"Yes, but that was because he took that sword. I plan on recovering it and destroy it so no other dragons had to suffer like I did," he could see a bit of pain in her eyes when she mentioned her intention.

"I see," Minato answered, closing his eye. "But I am sorry, I have no intention of giving it away to be broken."

"I don't plan to ask you that after seeing what you could do with it. It might be a god made sword, but what you did was unachievable under any circumstances….Besides," she trailed off. "You didn't hurt Kanna, so I suppose I could truth you with it," she concluded while stroking Kanna's head.

Minato only nodded, accepting her trust with gratitude, though Kobayashi seemed confused at what her maid was referring to as 'unachievable.'

"By the way, Minato-san, what's your plan for today?" Kobayashi asked, though as a formality rather than wanting anything from him. He wouldn't complain though. The woman held the power of Arcana: Temperance. While he was doubtful she could summon a Persona, he would like to see where this link would take him. Besides, it's always nice to make new friends.

"I am planning to look for a permanent job. Since I didn't have any university degree, I pretty much have very little options."

Kobayashi nodded understandingly, "I see, that must be tough. Well, I won't keep you any longer then."

The three said their goodbye and left Minato to his own device again. The boy supposed he spent enough time slacking off. He got himself ready before going off to try and find a job.

xxxxx

"Blue Hawaii had left the bar, repeat Blue Hawaii had left the bar," Usagi said through her phone as Minato left his apartment. The Sailor Scouts were hiding behind an electricity post, peeking their head out to watch the boy left.

"Umm Usagi, we're right here," Ami said, a tiring smile on her face.

"And why are you calling him 'Blue Hawaii'?" Makoto asked.

"It's a code name so our secret wouldn't spill out."

"We're not playing spy here, Usagi. We're just here to see if the boy was a threat," Rei reminded her friend.

"Well, how are we supposed to know that?" Mikoto asked. "Also why 'Blue Hawaii'?"

"We just follow him until we can see if he is a threat or not. Also because his hair is blue," Usagi answered.

"It's deep blue actually," Rei corrected.

"Really? It looks more like lazuli blue to me," Makoto countered.

"No time to waste! We must keep him within our sight," Usagi said and went to the next hiding spot. Her friend could only look on as the energetic girl continue to spy on the boy.

xxxxx

Minato searched on and on and on for a job. Past late morning into the noon, past the noon into the afternoon and past the afternoon into the evening. At this point, he had stopped for today. He thought for a place to eat dinner and decided to go to Restaurant Yukihira again.

On the way, though, he could feel that there were eyes locked on him. He was being followed.

He walked on, for now. Allowing them to do as they pleased until he found a suitable spot. When opportunity struck, he moved into a park and allowed them to follow.

He sat on a bench near the fountain, waiting for them to act.

He spotted a lone short old man walking his way. He was dressed in traditional Japanese clothing with a straw hat covering his head. When the old man paused in front of him he knew this man was parts of people who were tracking him.

"May I sit here, young man?" the old man asked. Minato nodded. He took a seat beside the boy and stayed there, waiting. "You look tired," the old man remarked at Minato.

He blinked. Was it that obvious? He knew he had been looking for a job all day, but he had no idea it would tire his body to the point that it became apparent.

"I suppose I am," Minato replied. He let the silence continued for a few more minutes before taking his turn to ask. "What do you want?"

"I should be saying 'what are you talking about? I am just an old man passing by', but I could feel you already know you are being followed. So I will cut to the chase," the old man took off his hat, revealing an unnaturally long head beyond regular human. Minato immediately recognized him from the folktales, the commander of all yokai, Nurarihyon.

"So Natto Kozo told you about me?"

"Yes, but also I and a few of my subordinates saw you fight yesterday," the ancient yokai took out a pipe. "Do you mind if I?" he pointed at his pipe. Minato shook his head. Nurarihyon put some dried tobacco leaves into the pipe head and ignited them with a match. He inhaled the smoke and breathed them out. Minato waved the smoke away as the wind sent them his way. "So care to tell me how you summon a goddess?"

"You did not see me summon her," he denied.

"She was the rightful owner of that sword, which was supposed to be in the museum. Beside, Natto Kozo had already seen you did that," the yokai exhaled another wave of smoke. "Answer me or not, I am in no rush. If you decide not to answer, my yokai will just keep stalking you until you either show us or you answer my question," the bluenette eyed the old yokai.

"I did not trust you," Minato confessed coldly. The old man did not react, however, merely inhaled from the pipe.

"Then we will just keep watching you until we get what we wanted and lets me tell you, some of my subordinates have no self-control."

Minato stared at him. Was he threatening him with the lives of the innocents? Yes, he did, didn't he? Many yokai were known to hurt a human, whether by nature or sheer malevolent. Minato sighed, he would not put innocents lives in danger for his own sake, but he wouldn't tell this creature everything.

"Very well, what do you want to know?"

Minato had called Amaterasu to possessed him, ready to go if thing went ugly.

"How did you summon the Goddess of the Sun?"

Minato had come up with a way to answer the question, but he was interrupted by a shout.

"Nurarihyon!"

The old yokai sighed and turned to the voice, "it's great to see you too, Kitaro."

"What are you planning to do this time?"

"Nothing. I am just having a conversation with this young man here," he gestured at the boy.

"Like hell if I would believe that. What are you scheming this time?" the boy accused. The yokai signed again.

"...discovering the truth. Gyuki, please take care of our Kitaro here," he commanded. Gyuki leaped forth from his hiding spot along with many of Nurarihyon's subordinates. They surrounded Kitaro and ready to initiate the fight. The supreme commander turned back to the boy, "I am not a fan of dirty trick or cheap tactic, but you're too enigmatic and powerful than could be left alone. Now let go for a walk, we will have our privac-"

"Hold it right there!" They all turned to the new voice. They saw five individuals standing on the park light lamps, wearing sailor uniform in five colors.

"That's the magical girls!" One of Nura's yokai shouted.

"Which one?!" Another asked in a panic.

"They're the Sailor Scouts!" the third one answered.

"What do you want?" Nurarihyon asked them, calmer than most of his underlings.

"We are here to rescue that boy," the one in blonde hair and standard color sailor outfit pointed at Minato then hesitatingly at Kitaro. "Made it two boys!"

"This business is beyond you, kids. You should leave while you still have the chance," Nurarihyon threatened.

Minato only watched in as the whole event unfolded, like some live-action superheroes roadshow. [2] He must admit, it would be hilarious to watch if this wasn't involving him. Eventually, the situation dissolved into an all-out fight.

It began with the supreme commander ordered his yokai to attack them. The boy, Kitaro as he was called, gave the yokai closest to him a kick in the head before his hair seemed to turn solid and he shot out hundred of needles hair at his enemies.

The Sailor Scout, seeing the boy began his attack, joined in. They jumped off the lamp and each of them landed on the face of a yokai with the exception of Sailor Mars whose attempt of attack was blocked by Gyuki and his sword.

"Hmm, is that all?" the Gyuki asked. Sailor Mar did not reply and only jumped off when she realized her attack was stopped. Gyuki sniffed, "You're smelled of incense, you're a Miko, aren't you?" She still didn't answer. Seeing this, Gyuki stopped monologuing and started his attack.

With the fight going on all around him, Minato believed he could slip away, even Nurarihyon himself was engaged with one of the Sailors, the blonde girl who interrupted the yokai commander. He quietly got up and climbed behind the bench, intending to use the bushes behind him as cover to escape.

He found himself unable to move when two gigantic arms wrapped around his chest. Then he felt his blood rush down to his feet as he and whatever was holding him, leaped into the air to an unknown destination.

xxxxx

[1] The cook is Soma Yukihira from **Shokugeki No Soma** , don't worry this fiction is not a major crossover in this story.

[2] Not sure if this exists in the west, but popular superheroes show (animation or live-action) sometimes went around the country and perform local live action version of the show for the kids; this is what roadshow is, the short version at least.


	4. 4

Only one.

 **A/N: I want to ask who do you think should be the 'Emperor' Arcana? Arcana here is not just association with said title, but the personality that fit the meaning of the cards.**

 **Just give me anyone that fit the catalog, but if possible I am looking for someone from a movie (like, seriously I have no Arcana from a single non-animated movie) or from a book/literature. But all in all, no more from video game plz. Villain is fine, actually villain would be very welcoming.**

 **Please don't give me something that is 'too big' like DC, Marvel, or Star Wars. This story is already very big as it is.**

They landed in another park on the other side of Tokyo. The arms that were holding him loosening and let him move again. He sprung around to meet an extremely large man with long dark blonde beard, mustache and hair wearing green yukata rope.

"Hello there young man," the Elder greeted. Minato did not reply, only starring the giant old man. "I can see you're still trying to make sense of what is going on." Minato instead shook his head. He could make sense of what's going which was why he didn't truth this man, not after three parties tried to snatch him away. "Ah, so it's just mistruth, not that I could blame you for what you went through back there," Hayato acknowledged then laughed heartily.

"Well let me start opening up then. My name is Hayato Furinji. I am the owner and one of the masters at a dojo called Ryozanpaku. I saw you fight last night, and, well, it's really hard not to be interested in you afterward," the man confessed. "So how about this? Come to my dojo and let me treated you to delicious dinner? How is that sound?"

Minato was about to politely decline, but his stomach beat him to it when it growled.

"I will take that as a yes!" the large man laughed and pat the bluenette on the back. "Come then, else the others will eat all our supper!" the hearty Elder led the way.

The boy knew if he tried to run now this monster of a man would just grab him and drag him away to his dojo. From the feast of flying, no, jump from one side of the city spanning over 2,180 kilometers to the other in a few minutes, Minato doubt he could win this man without using a Persona, a strong one too, which would give the man what he wanted anyway.

Seeing no alternatives, he followed Hayato to wherever he was leading.

"Ah, by the way, what's your name?" the old man asked.

"Minato," the boy answered reluctantly. The Elder then continued to lead the way.

After walking for awhile, they finally arrived at the dojo. The large wooden gate stranded between them and whatever inside. Minato tensed, whatever in there, he was ready for it. The Elder pushed open the large door with merely an index finger. Once they walked past the door frame, he closed the wooden gate.

The place was much bigger than Minato had expected. How many people were intended to be held here? A hundred? The decoration was traditional Japanese style with green grasses, a large pond, several stone lamps, bamboo clusters, granite path and so on and so forth.

The Elder led the boy into the main building and into the traditional wooden building with minimal decoration. Minato was forced to a halt when a woman popped out from the ceiling and came to face to face with him. The woman features were gorgeous, though he noted her eyebrows was oddly shaped, like lightning bolts. Her black hair was styled in a high ponytail which complemented light purple eyes.

She stared at him, remaining stoic, just like him. He looked up to see what the woman was hanging on, giving him the chance to see her slender yet curvaceous body. He traced up until he saw she hanged from the hole in the ceiling, using her legs as a hook. His eyes came back to face the woman, neither spoke anything.

"Hello," she started.

"Hello, sorry for interluding," the boy replied.

"Ah, Shigure-chan. This is Minato-kun, he came over for dinner. Minato-kun, this is Shigure Kosaya, the weapon master of the dojo, please make each other an acquaintance," Minato almost raised an eyebrow at the Elder for being so familiar with him even though he was not. Was he trying to win him over? "By the way, where is Ken-"

Hayato was cut off when a high pitch scream, almost like a girl scream, echoed from somewhere within a dojo. Seeing no sign of distress from the woman, who he was having an eye contact with, he ignored it.

A boy with spiky brown hair ran into the view, judging from his face and height, he was probably a year or two younger than him. He continued to run toward the bluenette.

"Oh, Ken-chan! There you are!" The Elder cheered and opened his arm, looking like he was going to embrace the running boy. The brunette only screamed further and skillfully dodge the large man to the side then he did the same with Shigure before ending up behind the stoic boy.

"Please mysterious stranger! Save me!" he pleaded.

'Mysterious stranger, huh? That was the first.'

"Oi Kenichi, we're not done yet!" half-angry, half-happy voice shouted. A large man, though not as large as Hayato, came into a view. His skin was tan with several scars. He wore a brown jacket with nothing underneath and blue jean.

"He's right, Ken-chan. You should come back...before we start to seriously chase you," another person followed. He was a short man with a mustache. He wore green traditional Chinese dress wore by martial artist and a bowler hat.

"Apa! Apa!" yet another one. This one was an extremely tone and large, dark tan man with bluish silver hair. He dressed in what Minato presumed to be a Muay Thai fighter outfit, or he presumed, he lacked knowledge on the subject.

The three were chasing the boy hiding behind him. His face remained unflinching even at the sight of three monstrous men stomping across the corridor. They came to a halt once they spotted a stranger was shielding the boy.

"Eh, Elder who's this guy," the one in jacket asked.

"Maybe he's a new disciple!" the Chinese man cheered.

"Apa! Another student!" the Muay Thai fighter joined in.

"Alright people calm down," the Elder interrupted. "I just invite Minato-kun here for a dinner, he isn't joining," the Elder gave an unsubtle wink. The others seemed to understand what he meant, even Minato.

The Elder introduced the Persona-user to each of the masters. The one in the jacket was Shio Sakaki, Karate master, the one in Chinese dress was Kensei Ma, Chinese Kenpo master, the Muay Thai fighter was Apachai Hopachai, the master of, obviously, Muay Thai, and lastly Kenichi Shirahama, the disciple.

"Well, I'm off to tell Miu to prepare extra food for today, please make yourself at home, Minato-kun," Hayato went away to do as he said.

As for Minato, he contained himself from grimace for being forcefully dragged here against his will. He found the best way to do so was to keep staring at the woman he had first made eyes contact with. The others seemed a bit unsure of how to process, they did not look like they wanted to interrupt the pair match. Finally, though, someone finally mustered up the courage.

"Uh, um, Minato-san," it was the boy who was hiding behind the bluenette who spoke. Both Minato and Shigure turned to face him. Their cold emotionless eyes stare right into his own, and into the soul too from the unfortunate teen perspective. The boy fainted.

"Ah! Kenichi fainted again!" Apachai yelled out loud in panic.

"And this time it was just from a stare…" Sakaki remarked, unamused.

"Well, consider the tension within their eyes…" Kensei trailed off, unwilling to finish because of the reason he wasn't sure of.

With that over, the two went back at it. The other masters just sat down to observe the match, at first reluctantly then tensely as the staring contest went on. Shigure eventually got down from the ceiling, her eyes didn't leave his.

"Dinner's ready!" a feminine voice shouted further into the dojo.

The other masters and Kenichi got up and were all ready to head to get their supper, but waited to see if the two staring pair would go with them. Minato got up, when he did so did Shigure. When the bluenette walked forward, the woman walked backward, without turning around, and continued to do so as they headed for dinner; mimicking his steps and distant from him like a mirror. What impressive was she didn't hit anything or anyone.

They all eventually arrived to meet with a table full of food. Everyone seated down happily, or at least almost everyone; no one could read what Minato and Shigure were thinking. The Elder took this opportunity to introduce Minato to two more people, Miu Furinji, Hayato's granddaughter, and Akisame Kōetsuji, the Jujutsu master of the dojo.

When the Elder finally declared 'let's eat', he broke away from staring with Shigure, which cause her to blink in surprise. He picked up his chopsticks and ready to get some of the food onto his plate.

Before the chopstick could reach the closest dish, however, several more chopsticks overwhelmed his and the plate was left empty within a few seconds. He looked to the others to see that the same processes were being repeated all over the table.

His hunger overcame his sense.

No time to think of the reason, he needed to act if he wanted to get anything onto his plate. Judging from the master's speed with chopstick though, he would barely able to match them…unless…

The idea was absurd. Using Persona's body enchanting ability to improving a person's skills to help to get the food? He doubt any of them would help.

He was wrong.

One cheerful Persona from the Greek pantheon offered to help him.

He didn't need to be offered twice. He let the Messenger of Gods into his soul and mind to enchant his speed. Soon his hand that was holding chopsticks joined into the blurring lines above the table of the masters'.

"Oh, not bad, kid," Sakaki commented.

"You have potential," Kensei added.

He didn't listen. His priority was the food. Hermes laughing like a madman in his mind was also distracting.

While all this was going on, Kenichi was left with an empty plate. He really tried, he really did, but for this dinner, the masters were too serious about testing Minato speed they ignored Kenichi's level to keep up. And so he was left stunned, frail, mortified and worst of all: hungry. Yet heaven still had mercy on him.

A grilled saba fish appeared on the disciple's plate. Kenichi's brain was processing how, because it was definitely not one of his masters and Miu sat too far from him this time. When the disciple could not find an answer, he looked up to see who had committed this act of compression. He caught a glimpse of Minato looking at him for a split second.

Realizing what just happened, the grit in his eyes brightened. A big bright smile appeared on his face which directed at the bluenette. He quickly started munching down on his fish before any of the masters could steal it from him. What he didn't realize though was everyone, sans Minato who did the act, also saw it and they smiled at the boy kindness, and also increased their speed to compete with him.

Eventually, the food was all gone.

"Alright the first test is over," the Elder declared.

Minato knew this was no ordinary dinner session, but if this was just a test for a newcomer then he did not want to think what the disciple, Kenichi, must go through every day.

"You pass brilliantly, Minato-kun," the Elder continued. "As such, I think we should properly give you a supper without interruption which you deserve. So eat to your heart's content, Minato-kun. All our food is your."

The Elder had expected Minato to be close to full, not knowing he had high-metabolism, which allowed him to devour lots and lots of food. Minato wouldn't complain though, it was a nice way to get back at Hayato.

He looked at Miu who had prepared to go off to the kitchen to make him something more.

"I will have…"

xxxxx

"Grandpa…"

"H-hold on Miu, I didn't think he would…"

The Elder of Dojo was backing away from his approaching granddaughter whose killing intent had leaked into red aura surrounding her.

Maybe he overdid it. If he knew they were having a financial problem he wouldn't have eaten _all_ of their food...just most of it. He still remembered their face when he finished their last bowl of rice: priceless.

"Ugh, now we have to work more to get money," Sakaki complained. Other masters were about to join him, but a sandal flew in their direction and forced them to dodge. The sandal pieced into the wall a few inches away from Kenichi, causing the boy to yelp in terror.

"People with no steady income have to right to complain…" the blonde said as the steam of anger leaked from her mouth.

"Ah, Miu is angry!" Apachi yelled in terror.

"S-scary," Shigure added, though remained stoic her body was shaking a bit.

The only one who did not seem to react was Akisame, his eyes were still on Minato. The boy paid it no mind.

Minato must admit the girl, Miu, reminded him a bit of Yukari for some reasons. Maybe it was because of her outward cheerfulness or ability to hit anyone without remorse? It didn't matter. They were in one of the training rooms, meaning the Elder would definitely ask him to spar with someone; his bet was Kenichi, poor guy.

He would like to go home as soon as he could, but with the situation escalated like this it would only prolong his stay. Maybe he could speed it up in some ways…

He came up with something. He stood up and moved toward the granddaughter and her grandfather.

"I am the one who ate them. I will take responsibility," he said to both of them.

They were a bit shock at this, but Elder was happier than shock.

"Oh! Minato-chan!" he cheered happily.

"But I can't do that you are a guest you shouldn't be tie responsible for this, besides" she paused as she frowned. "It was them who forced your hand," she said pointing at the masters who tried to act innocent. "I can't blame someone who was hungry and was denied food. You even give some to Kenichi even though you didn't get as much as you should."

Was she...thinking he was really hungry? And that was why he ate all their food? He looked into her eyes, all he could see was sincerity behind her eyes. He almost smiled, almost.

'Bless her heart,' he thought.

Now he really felt bad for what he just did. Still, he intended to advance with his original intention, it would help fix this issue anyways.

"Then let me put it this way. If you invite a guest and they steal all your properties right before your eyes yet remained polite through it all would you still consider him a guest?" the sudden question seemed to surprise Miu.

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came. She closed it then opened it again, yet nothing. None of the masters said anything either.

"How can I repay you?" Minato asked firmly.

"How about you spar-" the Elder was cut off.

"Grandpa…" Miu killing intend surged up again. Her grandfather backed away. Her dark aura vanished in an instant as she turned back to Minato, "Well I would ask you to pay, but since you're a high schooler like us, I wouldn't want to put the burden on your family."

"I already graduated. I live alone so you don't have to be worrying about me."

"Still…" she thought long and hard. "How about this. If you help maintain the dojo for about…" she took out a calculator out of nowhere and did her math, "six months I will consider your debt paid. How does that sound?"

"What if I wanted to pay upfront instead?"

Miu went back to her calculator, "That would be about 4 million yen." [1]

Minato sighed. It was a no-brainer of which choice he would choose. Abused your right and it would get back to get you. Now he had less time to work odd jobs and even less at finding a stable one. He wouldn't walk away from this either. With another sigh, he accepted his fate.

"Very well, I will take care of the dojo as you had asked."

She smiled at him. Minato could feel an aura of jealousy coming from Kenichi. He paid it no mind.

"Thank you, Minato-san," she thanked and held his hand. For a short moment, he saw a split image of Aigis in her. His eyes widened but they quickly regressed as she let go of his hand. "Please come by tomorrow evening. I will teach you what to do," Minato nodded.

"Well! Now that that was over how about you spar with-" Hayato was cut off again when Miu let out her killing intent. "Just joking, just joking. You must be tired now, Minato-kun. I will see you out," the Elder walked away.

Minato lightly bowed to the others as a goodbye and followed the Elder. The masters waited in silence until Elder came back.

"So what are you people make of him?" the Elder asked the others.

"He looks a bit scrawny, but then again so did Kenichi when he started; no offense," Sakaki commented.

"N-none taken," the boy replied.

"He has potential, he's kind and despite the thin look he actually has some muscle, more than Ken-chan when he started even; no offense," Kensei added.

"None taken, shishou," Kenichi replied while Miu and Apachi nodded in agreement on the 'kind' part of the description.

"However," Akisame interrupted. "That was something about him that was off. During the dinner, I felt his Ki change when he started competing for food, like his own mix with something else. Then there were his eyes," Akisame paused, seemed like he couldn't find the proper word. "It's empty, yet…fill with a will. These two things rarely go together," he finished.

The Elder stroked his beard, pondering in his colleague's word. He realized one didn't voice her opinion yet

"Shigure-chan what about you? What's your take on him?" The Elder gestured at the weapon master.

She was silent, more than she normally was. "Too much like dad," her starting phase taken the others aback especially Akisami who knew of him. "Empty, yet strong will. Indifferent, yet caring. Doesn't act, unless necessary. Doesn't judge…merely accept." The others did not reply to her analysis and let their thought warder at how the boy was really like. "Also…" this caught their attention back.

Shigure did not continue immediately, she shifted uncomfortably and a blush appeared on her face.

"He's handsome."

"WHAT!?"

xxxxx

[1] 10,000 yen is equal to 88 US dollar when this chapter was written. So 4 million yen wouldn't be as much as you expect. It's still a lot, mind you, just not as high as 4 million dollars.

[2] 'Shisou' means teacher in Japanese, but not in the same sense as a classroom teacher. Since we are talking about this, I will try to keep everything in English, but I will still use specific word and honorific in Japanese-written-English.


	5. 5

Only one

 **A/N: In case you wonder if the story will be overclocking with crossover, keep in mind that not all fiction will stick permanently, some** **are** **just cameo** **s** **, some** **are** **just for an arc. To make it easy for you to try to keep a tab** **, try** **remember** **ing** **the character with Arcana like Kobayashi since they will stay.**

Minato opened his eyes. He expected to be greeted by the ceiling of his apartment, but instead, he found himself back in a familiar place. The light platform amid the void.

His dark host still on the opposite side of him, as if they were still talking.

"Hello, again, Mister Arisato," the 'Man' greeted him.

Minato did not speak.

"I said I would visit you again and here I am. What about you? How are you, Mister Arisato?"

Minato hesitated, but decided to humor the creature, "Fine, I supposed."

The 'Man' laughed heartily, but his disturbing aura still hung in the air, "this is why I like you. A man of few words. In any event, is there anything you wanted to ask? I am not known to usually be this generous."

Minato got many questions, but he wouldn't want to ask all of them. Maybe just something essential.

"Do you know anything about the mysterious Persona I couldn't summon?"

"They are the native Persona. The strong souls that could not be confined to the lesser afterlife and could not reach the Sea of Soul because there were none within the cluster. But when you arrived, you brought your Sea of Soul with you."

" _My_ Sea of Soul?"

"Unnecessary details, no use answering them. But know that there will be more Persona for you to summon forth, most of them would not fit your world history context: like the one that made contact with you the first week. Now you're probably wondering why you couldn't summon them yet, right?"

Minato nodded. The 'Man' smile grew.

"But you already know the answer," it answered. Minato nodded reluctantly.

He had some guesses that, like back when he was with SEES, he needed to form a link with the Personas. This can be done either through temporarily sacrifice the essence of certain personas to call forth a specific Persona or through Social Link, an everlasting bond with a person whose soul and personality was enough strong to possessed an Arcana, a key to unlocking Personas and, more importantly, a part of their soul.

"But like the rate of Persona users, the rate of people who had strong enough soul and personality to possessed the Arcana within their very being was very rare, probably around the same rate as Persona users," the answer made Minato frowned.

"Oh come now, at least it's still a better number than people who can use Persona. Besides, chances are that someone can have both Arcana and Persona at the same time. You'll just have to find them," the man explained.

Minato had suspected that to be the case, he just wanted confirmation.

The bluenette had already prepared his second question as the 'man' sipped his 'tea.'

"How do I get to another dimension?"

"Hmm," the host bemused. "There're various means in the world I dropped you in, just keep involving in whatever you're involving with and you will find a way; some better, some worse than the others," it finished the cup and put it back on the plate. It suddenly shifted its eyes away from Minato, "two more questions. I have to get going."

Minato was prepared, "Are you the threat, you're asking me to find?" This thought came up in his head for a while now. In some stories, the writers themselves were the true villain. The person who messed up the perfectly good life of someone in order to entertain themselves.

The 'Man' was surprised, but its hellish grin quickly replaced its confusion. "Oh-ho, now that was a serious accusation. But unlike in most situations, the simple 'Yes' or 'No' wouldn't do. You have to find the answer yourself. Now onto the last one," he gestured for the boy to speak.

Minato took a deep breath, "who was the martyr you mentioned?"

It laughed, now the laughter was filled with nothing but monstrous echo and malice. The platform began to extend yet again.

" **You will know her…"** the man body started to shift.

The bone and muscle crackled and snapped as they recessed, the skin melt and reform into white fur, a large white fox-like tail grew from its behind, four pairs of ears; two large floppy ears and two cat-like ears atop its horizontal oval skull, fell from the side of its head and its eyes turned round and ruby-red.

No longer was there a 'man' on the opposite side of him, but an alien creature, size no bigger than a domestic cat, that seemed to blend all aspects of domestic animal, cuteness, and unnaturalness together, as if it was a toy company's mascot. When it spoke again, the voice that came out was very much like a little girl, but for someone like Minato, he could still feel the malice in the tone.

 **...when you see her.**

xxxxx

Minato opened his eyes, this time he was greeted with the empty ceiling and the leaking sunlight. For the longest time, he stared at it; wondering about the strange being that had put him through all of this. After pondering enough, he got up from the bed and made his way to the bathroom where he started his usual morning routine.

He came out of the bathroom in a short and a white shirt, towel wrapped around his neck. While he was making his way across the small main room toward the kitchen counter, he noticed something at the door. A brown cardboard box.

That's strange, he didn't order anything.

He came up to the box. A note was glued to it.

'Since you have been keeping up with my expectation so far, I will throw you some bones.'

Minato did not need to think twice about who had sent him this package. He carefully opened the box, slowly untapped it while leaning back to jump away if the danger presented itself.

He opened the lid and saw the contents inside. The first thing that greeted him was a photo of himself along with the members of SEES in front of their dorm. He remembered this one, it was the one he kept in his room.

He scanned other objects in the box, they were...they were his mementos from people he remembered fondly. There are Ken's silver key, President Tanaka's letter, and even Akinari notebook, but what he remembered most dearly was a charred screw, Aigis's gift.

He gently picked up the charred metal. Anyone else would have thought of this as nothing but junk, but for him, it was a treasure. His mind started wandering back to the day he spent with all the people who had gifted him these items.

He was recalled back to the reality when the box started shaking. He looked down to discover that there was a sack underneath all the items. Something was trying to make its way out.

"Is there anyone out there?!"

A woman voice called out of the bag. He pulled the sack out of the box and worked to untie the rope used to tie the bag mouth. Once he pulled the rope away a cat popped out, much to his surprise.

It started breathing in the air like it was being suffocated within that bag. While it was recovering, he noticed how strangely colored the cat was. Its chest, muzzle, and paws were white, while its back was either orange or black. One of its eyes was rimmed with darker fur than the other and had a black tipped, gold-and-brown striped tabby tail.

"H-how? Where?" it asked in famine voice that called for help early

It noticed Minato. It froze. Her eyes remained on his. Before long, she growled and tried to move out of the bag. When she noticed she was stuck. She struggled to get out.

Minato, for his part, still remained expressionless. He just sat there waiting for the talking cat to do whatever it was going to do. The feline finally got out and started looking around for a way out of the apartment, but she made sure that at least one eye was still on him all the time.

When she realized there was no possible escape route without going past the bluenette, she made a leap to try and get past him. Minato quickly sprung into action.

He caught the cat by its body, but he had to leap along with it to reach it in time, else it would get away and made a mess of his apartment. He was expecting to be able to catch it without doing that. The normal cat was fast, but this one was much faster.

"Let go of me! Let go of me, twolegs!"

The boy raised an eyebrow at that name.

"Twolegs?" He asked it and it froze again.

The Persona user turned the cat around to face him. Its shocked amber eyes stared right into his cold silver eyes.

"You...understand what I am saying, twolegs?" Minato nodded. "How?" Minato shrugged. There was a long pause between the two, the cat was obviously calming itself down. The feline spoke again, "Where am I?" the panic in her voice decrease drastically.

"You're in my apartment in Tokyo, Japan."

She sighed, "as expected. I wouldn't know any of the places twolegs would refer to."

"Minato."

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Minato, not twolegs."

"Ah, sorry if I offended you, but twolegs is what we called your people," she apologized.

"Don't you formed a bond with a human, umm I mean twolegs?" Minato asked, curious at the cat. She shook her head.

"No, the Warrior Code prevented us from doing that. Any of our kind that did that would either be considered Kittypets, there's some exception of course," she informed him, much to his confusion at those names. "You have given me your name and I shall give mine. My name is Spottedleaf, member of the StarClan." Minato nodded in acknowledgment. "Can you, umm, put me down?" [1]

Minato did as he was asked. Once her feet touched the wooden floor, she started shifting around.

"This place is very strange: twolegs can speak with a cat and I don't even know how I am...alive again."

"Alive again?"

"Consider neither of us understands most of what the other said, the best way to describe it was I sacrifice my life and I should remain like that."

That sound very familiar to his case. Don't tell him…

"What was your last memory before you're here?" he questioned her.

She put her paw over her mouth as she recalled, "After my conscious fade completely after my throat was ripped out, I woke up again to see a twolegs, no, not a twolegs, a creature made of darkness which resembles twolegs stood in front of me with a..grin, for the lack of better word, and then darkness enveloped me and when I woke up I was in that sack," she pointed her paw at her container.

"I think I know who sent you here."

"Really?" there was some hope in her voice, then her eyes were filled with hesitation. "Could you...made it sent me back?"

Minato shook his head, "whatever it is, it doesn't care about what happens to us. It only wants to get some entertainment out of us that's why it sent both of us here."

Spottedleaf seemed shocked at the explanation, "But why would it do that? And what do you mean both of us?"

Minato walked back to the main room and beckoned for the feline to follow. She waited there for a few moment, still didn't trust him. She finally gave in and follow the twolegs into his den.

She saw him stationing at his dinner table with two mugs on the table. He gestured at his opposite side. She jumped up onto the table and sit opposite to him.

"Drink," he gestured at the mug.

Spottedleaf looked into the mug to see green water.

"What is this? A poison?"

"It's called tea. One of human many drinks," he took a sip at his own mug before showing her that he was drinking the same green water as well. She gazed down at the water for the longest time, judging whether she could drink it. She looked up again.

"I can't accept food or water from twolegs. That's against the warrior code and it will make me a kittypet, a cat being kept and raised by a human, that's not a good thing in case you're wondering."

Minato blinked. Was that what all cat think? If that's true he started to wonder what was going on inside Koromaru's head.

Still, back to the present. The cat was obviously distressed and confused. Tea and beverage, in general, was one of the best ways to calm people down. She would obviously insist on not drinking them. He needed to work around that.

"Well…I didn't offer it to you. I just laid it there," he said.

A frown appeared on her face, "you can't work around the Warrior Code. That's considered dishonesty."

"But it's true," he pointed out. "Besides, in your current state of mind you would have a panic attack when I start explaining thing to you," he reasoned.

"Panic attack?" She tilted her head. He supposed he would have to explain that as well.

"A state of mind when someone was so distressed their conscious meltdown and they enter a state of constant panicking and unable to think straight; not healthy."

Spottedleaf stared into Minato's eyes again, trying to find some faults in it. She got nothing but the coldness of his fine silver pupils. She sighed and finally dipped her mouth into the mug.

Her tongue touched the green water and she almost backed away due to how bitter the water was. The thought that this might be poison recurred to her. The bluenette noticed this.

"Ah, sorry. I should water down the tea a bit," he apologized.

Spottedleaf, for her part, remained dignified and tried to drink the tea. She swore if she wasn't a medicine cat, she wouldn't manage to swallow it. She finished and left her head up.

"Now that I had drunk your strange water, answered my question."

Minato laid down his cup and answered.

"I don't know."

There was a long silence, the longest Spottedleaf had ever felt in her life. As a medicine cat of her clan, it was her duty to remain calm in all situation, but for this one, she broke that duty.

"WHAT?!" Minato must admit. For a cat, she was very loud. "You dragged me into your den, telling me to drink your strange water and now you said you couldn't answer my question?!"

"I only refer to that I don't know why the creature would send us here, not its _real_ intention at least."

His answer did little to calm her down, but the mature cat could manage that on her own. She took a deep breath and drank her tea again, using the bitterness to fight her anger.

"Fine, then answer my other question." Minato nodded.

"Both you and I had died and we were brought back by that creature and, as I said, for its own entertainment as far as it explained."

"So you had died once as well?" he nodded. "I see."

Another extremely long silence followed, and this time even Minato felt it.

"Now that I am alive again," she spoke up, with hesitation in her voice. "do you think I could….go back home?"

Minato was dreaming about that as well. He knew the possibility of going back and lived alongside his friends again existed, and though he did not trust the creature that resurrected him, its claim that he could only reinforce this possibility.

"It's possible." There was a sudden spark in Spottedleaf's eyes. "But there's something I must do first," the cat tilted its head.

Minato had his doubt about trusting her but considered her situation, he should act. He started explaining to her: the concept of the multiverse, the reason why that creature specifically resurrected him, and the looming threat on the horizon.

Minato must admire Spottedleaf. She remained calm through all his explanation and listening to it attentively, any regular person would be panic or shock at this point.

"That was...quite a lot to take in." Minato nodded. "It's...harder to think in a place like this," she gazed around the apartment.

Minato guessed that for a wildcat with code preventing her from associating with a human to stay with one would cause great discomfort. He supposed it's time he went out.

"How about this," he got her attention. "I'm about to go out. I will drop you somewhere you could think clearly and I will come pick you up later. How does that sound?"

"It's...I suppose it would be better than in here," she complied.

"Let me change first."

He left her to go get into his usual clothing. The she-cat explored around the strange dwelling of the twolegs Minato.

"So this is what Firestar used to live with," she murmured softly to herself. Sadly remembering her lover whom she never meant to be with. She sighed, at least she knew he was happy and alive.

She walked to the nearby the transparent window gate leading out to the balcony. Seeing she couldn't get past it, she jumped her way up to the highest shelf in the living room.

She looked out the window.

The sight made her blood ran cold because, for the cat that had live in the wild all her life, the sight of the capital city was wrong in every possible sense.

It's as if all that she knew was in reverse, the twolegs places surrounded the wilds, the number of humans outmatched that of preys, cats and animals combined and so many many more.

She was left there, stunned at what she beheld. It was not until Minato lightly tapped her side that she was recalled back to reality again.

"Are you alright?" She managed to shake her head, still wide eyes. "I see. Do you still want to go outside?"

Spottedleaf took a deep breath and jumped down from the shelf. Minato caught on, he took the leftover tea from the table and put it down near her. She drank from it. At least cold tea was less bitter than the hot one.

"Can you walk on your own? Do you want me to carry you?" he asked, monotoned but with concern.

She pulled her head away from the mug, "y-yes, I should be fine, but please I would like to be around something familiar." Minato nodded.

He led them toward and out the door. Spottedleaf calmed down a bit more as she breathed in the air. It might be a city air, but at least Tokyo was one of the cleaner capital cities.

He remembered there was a small undeveloped plot close to the apartment. He chose that place to let Spottedleaf rest. It was not easy for the wildcat to walk at human speed.

Although he could not read her mind, the sight of her planting her foots with care and startled by any human they came across along the way made it pretty clear she was panicking on the inside.

"Will you be alright here until I came back?"

"Unless twolegs can start flying, I should be fine," she reassured though still a bit jumpy.

"I will come back around evening, umm, I mean twilight or later," the cat nodded and sullenly enter the small grove.

As Minato left, his Personas whispered to him once more.

 _ **The Arcana: Priestess.**_

xxxxx

The sun had reached the peak of the sky and plus this was spring so the weather was quite good too. Spottedleaf was lying on a large branch of a Japanese maple tree, pondering on what she would do next. Could she go back to StarClan or ThunderClan? Where are they? And where is she? What should she do next?

She sighed. At this point, she was sure other cats in her clan would probably call her an elder for sighing so much. Then again if they were in her position they would probably fair the same, or worse

After running many scenarios in her head, the best solution to her current situation would be to stay with Minato. As disgracing to the warrior code as that would be, under her current status she was sure they would understand...she hoped.

Her train of thought was interrupted when she heard a footstep creep from behind her, trying to be silent but fail miserably.

"Show yourself, I could hear you since you started crawling up the tree," she turned her head around to see a pair of black ears poking out from behind a tree. A head slowly poked out, revealing a black cat with red eyes and crescent moon on her forehead.

"Umm, hi," the black cat greet.

Spottedleaf only observed her, running her eyes all over the black cat. She turned around and decided to start sulking again.

"Are you, um, okay?" She didn't reply. The black cat sighed. She wiped something out of her ear with her paw. A faint sound of 'Luna, what's-' was heard as the black round thing fell off the tree. "Look, I am sorry if I came off as awkward. Let's start over. My name is Luna, what is your?"

Spottedleaf remained silent but gave in to her knowledge that she needed to do something else besides sulking.

"My name is Spottedleaf."

"That name is well coordinated with your fur pattern," Luna complimented.

The wildcat still didn't turn around. Luna took the advance and came to lay down beside Spottedleaf.

"It's a very warm and windy day," good, it reminded her of home back in the wild during spring. "I wish it was like this every day," so did she. "...do you want to talk about what's on your mind?"

Spottedleaf's mood sunk. Should she talk though? This cat, kittypet or otherwise, was a stranger. No harm could come from talking with someone you would never meet again or even believe such absurd story, right? Spottedleaf opened her mouth.

"Well…"

xxxxx

Minato was really getting frustrated. He had already covered a very large area in his job hunt, yet couldn't find any jobs. Minato was having a lunch while thinking over the issue.

"Here's your tea, Minato-san," the red hair teen, Yukihira Soma, the substitute owner of 'Restaurant Yukihira', served him the tea. "Something on your mind?" Soma asked.

Minato took a look around to see why the boy spared his time to ask him rather than attending other customers. His answer was, apparently, he was the only customer at the current moment.

"Just couldn't find a job that's all," Minato confessed before sipping his tea.

Soma held up a hand on his chin as he thought. The bluenette wondered why he needed to concern himself with him instead of cooking his lunch.

"You know people these days think so much about finding a job and being an employee so much they forget they can choose their path in life more than that."

"I don't like it much better than you do, but I need money to help me get to my dream," or life goal really.

"Yes, but why is only an employee? Why not the small business owner?" Soma asked.

Well now that the redhead mentioned it, he did have that option, but it's very risky. If the business flunked he would in big trouble.

"Not a good idea."

"Are you sure? I mean, it doesn't look like you have trouble ordering people around."

"No, too risky," Minato took another sip.

"Hmm, true. People hardly tip at all these days," that was not the problem… "Still, consider it, Minato-san. If you run the business instead of just working in one, you would make money AND have free time, look at me for example!" Yeah, having to run around the shop like it was marathon during lunchtime sure sound like 'free' time. "Well, your rice should cook now. I will go back to cooking."

Minato nodded then thinking over Soma's advice. He signed, whatever plan he would cook up with, he needed to know the full extension of his debt to Ryozanpaku first; what would they made him do, what would they demand from him, what must he expect from them.

xxxxx

Well...this was unexpected.

"And remember to separate clothes by color," Miu instructed, though he already knew that.

In the end, all they wanted from him was doing house chores. He supposed he expected too much, at least most of his task were basic ones. He began separating clothe by color before putting them into the washing machine.

As he was doing his job, Kenichi was being trained nearby. He could hear the screamed from the yard. The training was...harsh to say the least, putting many harsh training he had seen in the past to shame.

Back in his home dimension, Akihiko Sanada sneezed.

On the bright side, at least they didn't talk about protein all the time.

Akihiko sneezed again and wondered if he caught a cold, he was walking around topless after all.

Well, nothing he could do he suppos-

A dagger hit the wall, a few inch away from his head. He turned around to find the attacker but found none. Yet considering how fortified this place was...oh gods, don't tell him.

Another dagger, no, kunai, and this time he was forced to dodge.

'Hermes…' better use him, to make thing consistent the same way with Amaterasu.

 _I hear, ya._

With the Persona anchored with him, let's see if he could make it through the first basket befor-

He caught a kunai between his fingers.

 _Careful there, they might start to overestimate you at this rate._

Minato nodded to the Persona warning and set to his task as he kept on dodging kunai after kunai that was thrown his way. By some miracle, he managed to finish his job without resorting to using their clothing as hostages. Well, now that that was done, let go see what other things Miu wanted him to do.

xxxxx

It's done.

Every chore Miu wanted him to do, all finished and it wasn't easy. Through it all, the master of Ryozanpaku used whatever means they could to interrupt him.

When he was trimming some bush, Akisame threw a few stone Buddha statues that he was supposed to throw at Kenichi his way, with the excuse that 'it slip.' When he was helping Miu cooking, Apachi tried to punch him, but just pretend he was reaching for something. And those were just the lighter ones.

He would have stayed for dinner, but he didn't to compete for food again or extending his dept. So once he was done, he said his goodbye and left. But he wasn't entirely done with Hermes though.

'Is Junpei alright?' he asked his friend Persona.

 _He is doing alright. Last I check he was coaching a kid baseball team. Still trying to find a nice woman to date though..._

Minato smiled at that. That looked like something Junpei would do.

 _However, since you called upon me here. I felt that his and mine bond were...weaken, so to speak._

The bluenette's smile was gone immediately.

 _Relax, I am sure he could still call upon me if he so desires, but I could barely_ _sense_ _his presence compare to before this. Why and how all of this is possible, I have no idea, so don't bother asking._

Minato nodded, unsure what to do with this piece of information. That was not his focus as of now, however, it's time to check on Spottedleaf.

He arrived back at the grove he left the cat. He saw her laying on a branch.

When she noticed him, he jumped off the tree and landed on her feet; as expected from a cat.

"Are you feeling better now?" the boy asked.

She nodded, "I have managed to lift this off my chest a little bit," hmm, she still used some human expression, interesting.

"And what will you do now?"

She took a deep breath. 'Ancestor forgives me,' she thought to herself.

"I would like to stay with you for a little while. I'm...very small here. If I ever wish to go back home, you're probably my only hope. Do not make mistake though, I will not accept help from you beyond shelter," she finished.

Minato nodded. It would certainly be nice to have someone to talk to. Loneliness always left a bad taste in his mouth. Somewhat autonomously, Minato extended his hand and petted the cat, much to her shock.

"I would be glad to help," he said with a very faint, but sincere smile on his face. Spottedleaf seemed to lose herself a bit and let him pet her more, then she realized how dishonored this was and yanked herself away.

She began to walk in direction of the apartment. Minato presumed she had already memorized the location of his place. Though he couldn't help but felt that he might just offend her with that petting.

However, she turned her head around, eyes glittering along with the light of the streetlamp, "Thank you."

Those two words sum up all she felt at that moment. Then something familiar happened. Minato's world slowly frozen and color seemed to drain from everything, leaving his vision with nothing but grey...

 **I am thou...and thou am I…**

 **Thou hast forged a new bond...**

 **And from this bond thou shalt forged a**

 **great weapon against thy enemies...**

 **We bestow upon thee Persona**

 **belongs to the Priestess Arcana...**

xxx

[1] Spottedleaf is from **Warrior** novel series. Not to be mistaken with a novel of the same name about a gang in NYC. Also, I didn't know why, but the novels didn't separate the clan name and the word 'clan,' but hey I am a sucker for canon.


	6. 6

There is only one.

 **A/N: We will stop from rapidly introducing new fictions for a few chapter. Let resolve our currently building up the plot for now.**

 **This might come as a surprise, but I have to ask. Have I been using 'had' wrong? Considering the contexts.**

Minato woke up to the sound of his alarm clock ringing. The sunray shined into his room as usual. He got up before quietly opening the door. He poked his head out to check on Spottedleaf. She was still sleeping on the couch, peacefully from what he observed.

So with that over, he went back to bed, intending to get about an hour more of rest. However, his intention was stopped when the doorbell rang. He sighed.

Let's just hope just hope it wasn't the landlord seeing him taking a cat with him; there's no pet policy here. He opened the door to the main room. Spottedleaf was awakened by the bell as well.

"Stay here," Minato said to her. The cat nodded.

Minato went to the door before looking through the door viewing hole. Outside his door was five teenager and two cats, wait they looked familiar...oh, it's those...what was their name again? Sailor...Sailor M...M...Moon! The Sailor Moon! The group that tried to 'save' him from Nurarihyon, the yokai commander.

If he wasn't there himself, he would not believe the absurdity of all that; and that's coming from a Persona user.

But to deal with the situation at hand, let see what they wanted first. He opened the door.

"Good morning," he greeted first.

"Um...morning," the leader replied and her friends followed suit.

"How can I help you?" he asked, pretending that this conversation would not go in the direction he knew it would.

"Well, um…" the blonde leader was silent. Her friends looked at each other, panicked. They expected one of their own to help. But before any could volunteer, the leader snatched the black cat from one of her colleague's arm and put it in front of his face. "You explain!"

"Nice going, Usagi," her brown-haired companion voice was oozing with sarcasm.

The cat and Minato stared at each other, neither seemed like they were going to speak anything. And neither got the chance to.

"What are you doing here?!" a voice called from behind Minato, the voice of Spottedleaf.

"Oh, um, hi, Spottedleaf," the black cat greeting was very clumsy.

"What! Another talking cat?!" Usagi was shocked. At this point, the other Sailor Scouts started to feel frustrated at the situation.

"Alright look," the black-haired girl, Rei, stepped in. "We know of your situation about stopping this multiversity threat and, honestly, we would like to help," she declared.

The blood seemed to drain from Minato's face a little. While he didn't have any long-term plan on 'Saving the multiverse', he certainly did not plan to tell anyone the truth yet. These magical girls are just...just…

Minato sighed out loud. At his failures to contain the information and at his own distrust. He thought he had overcome such paranoia and cynicism from his early life, but it seemed to still stick with him. There's no shame in asking for help.

"Please come in," he said.

The Sailor Scouts looked at each other, before nodding to one another. Minato led him into his apartment. They crammed themselves onto the couch while Minato dragged a chair and sat in the opposite direction of them.

Spottedleaf sat on the table between them, eyeing their black cat with contempt – bordering hatred.

"So, how do you know of my situation," if this was indeed leaked through Spottedleaf, which the situation seemed to indicate so, then at least his previous adventure would still at least remained a secret; those were too personal to share with strangers.

"We had been, um, spying on you for a few days now ever since your fight with the dragon," the other blonde of the group explained.

"Say, where is she anyway? You took off together," the glassed one asked.

"She's next door," he answered, no hint of emotion on his face.

"Oh," the girl remarked.

"Anyways, back to the question," Rei reminded them. "Yesterday we saw you with that cat," she pointed at Spottedleaf. "So we ask our dear friend Luna here," she gestured at their black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead. "To ask your pet about you."

"I'm no one kittypet," the spotted cat grumbled.

"Kittypet?" some in the group asked.

"Not important now, please continue," Minato told them. If he can't save his own privacy, he could at least save Spottedleaf's.

"Well, through your pe- friend. We know of your situation about trying to find this inter-dimensional threat. Then we reached an agreement to finally come talk to you," Rei concluded.

"And why didn't you come to talk early?" Minato asked the obvious.

"We planned to, but those yokai attacked," the brown-haired one told him.

"After that, we have a little...disagreement," the blue-haired one added nervously.

After that, the silence fell. Minato sighed.

"Look, I appreciate your offer, but I can barely make out the situation as it is. This problem is really…" he was at lost of the word. Saving multiple dimensions was definitely going beyond just 'big.' "It's complicated," the Sailor Scouts nodded. "Then there's this...entity," Minato added. Spottedleaf visibly shivered.

"You mean the one behind this?" Luna asked. Minato nodded.

"There's no telling what it was, what's its intention or the extent of its malice. I don't want anyone to get involved without the need to, like Spottedleaf here who was forced by the entity." The Sailor Scouts' face fell at that, there seemed to be a conflict in them between their morality and rationality of Minato's word. "But," their face lit up. "I am not so foolish as to reject help when it's offer to me."

'Not anymore, at least.'

"I couldn't ask you to fight beside me, you had already involved too much as it is. But if you see anything that could potentially be this threat, please contact me." He accepted their help with a smile.

"Alright! Let's save the universe!" Usagi threw her arm in the air as she cheered.

"Multiverse," Rei corrected.

"Say, we didn't introduce ourselves yet. I am Ami Mizuno," the blue-haired girl with glass introduced, her friends followed.

"Rei Hino," the black haired one who led the conversation from the start introduced.

"Makoto Kino," the brunette in ponytail said. "I was the first one who saw you, you know."

"I see. When I fight that Daimon, right?" She nodded then turned to Ami and whispered 'told you so,' much to the other bluenette annoyance.

"I am Minako Aino," the blonde in red bow said. "This is Artemis," she looked at her white cat companion.

"Greeting," he said.

"And I am Usagi Tsukino, the leader of the Sailor Scouts," the blonde in pigtails hairstyle exclaimed cheerfully. "Oh, and Luna," she gestured at the cat.

"Hey!" The black cat was obviously offended.

"I'm Minato Arisato," he introduced then looked at Spottedleaf, understanding that someone like her would prefer to introduce herself. The cat was silent, however.

She turned her face away from the group, after staring at them all this time. "I shall not give my name to liars." She left without saying anything further. Minato only signed.

"Do you really have to trick her?" Minato inquired with certain upsetness in his voice.

"If I know what she had been through, I wouldn't have done that," Luna replied with great seriousness in her tone, much to the scouts' confusion. Minato lifted an eyebrow at that.

"She tells you about her previous life?" Minato asked, as she certainly didn't do the same to him.

"She was expecting a stranger whom she could let everything out without having to worry about the consequence, but that wasn't the case."

"I see, then," Minato got up before taking Luna from Usagi's arm and put her on the ground. "We both know you're the only one who could make her feel better," Minato said firmly.

Luna hesitated for a moment but took a deep breath and followed Spottedleaf. Minato turned back to the others. They exchanged numbers and other methods of contacting.

"Oh, shot! The school!" Ami shouted up. The other look at the room clock before starting to panic.

"We need to go now or we're going to be late for school!" Minako added in panic as they started to rush to the door.

"Please look after Luna!" Usagi shouted before running out along with the others.

Minato only signed. It looked like he would not be out looking for a job he supposed...well...time for the computer he guessed.

xxxxx

Minato looked out the window. The sun was setting, much to his disappointment; he just reached gym 2 on Pokemon ROM-hack on PC. Well, let's see if those two had resolved their issue yet. He checked up on them occasionally, but the last time he did there's still no progress since.

He opened the window to the balcony where both Spottedleaf and Luna was gazing at the sunset.

"So…" Spottedleaf simply went back into the apartment. Luna signed. "Didn't work?"

"I did some impact, but I think it would take time before she would forgive me completely," Luna replied with a sad smile on her face. "Still, I think I did make my point and she could see it. She's a very rational cat."

Minato nodded. The door rang. His guess was that was Usagi or one of the Sailors. He walked toward the door, Luna followed behind. He opened the door and was indeed greeted by Usagi.

"It's about time," Luna commented.

"How was the apologizing going?" the Sailor leader asked.

"This thing takes time," the black cat replied and jumped up to her friend. "I think it's time to leave her be, for now, she's in the rejection phase." She directed that to Minato. The bluenette nodded.

"See ya," the two bid their farewell and left.

Minato went back into his apartment. He checked on Spottedleaf.

"Are you doing alright?" She simply signed. "Are there any progress?"

"Progress? You mean the one-sided conversation of either trivial nonsense or stupid attempt to understand the Warrior Code? How is that progressing toward anything?"

Now it's Minato turn to sigh.

"Look, would you say that if you're in their position you would not do the same?"

"I understand the importance of seeing from others perspective, but there's a limit of action before it becomes unacceptable even if it's understandable. You yourself should have had that kind of experience, are you not?"

The artificial Persona users came to his mind. Such extreme action to bring an end of humanity was, while understandable due to their background, was not acceptable. With such counter-argument, he could not attempt to convince her that their action was justified, but still…

"Is it possible for you to forgive them?

The question left Spottedleaf hesitated, "we will see." He nodded that's good enough.

Minato decided this was the best time to leave her and went to make dinner for the two of them. While cooking, he wondered on how would it go from here. He had got his first allies in this tremendous task of his. With so many people on his trail, this secret would eventually leak out like today. Maybe he should...trust people more...he would need to think on this.

In any event, it's almost night time and since he wasted the whole day on the computer instead of trying to find a job...an idea hit him. He did try to find an online job, mind you, but he didn't try to find any job with night shift yet.

With that in his head, after the dinner, he went out the door to continue his job hunt. In his determination, he missed a sight of a blue butterfly resting from a nearby flower pot.

xxxxx

 **A/N: Short chapter yeah, but I can't do long ones all the time.**


	7. 7

There is only one.

 **A/N: I have found the Emperor Arcana. While I would prefer to keep him a secret like all other Arcanas, I will give some hints. He's from a cartoon, he's a villain, and his name begins with 'V.'**

Minato woke up to the sunlight shining through his room yet again. At this point, after failed to find any works during night time, he couldn't care less about getting a job. He got worlds to save for god's/God's/gods' sake, he could sleep on the street for all he gave a damn — though preferably not.

He pondered since last night about what his next course of action should be. He decided to think of the situation as cards on the table.

He got the Sailor Scout cards — six of them, the Priestess card — Spottedleaf, two dragon cards — Tohru and Kana, and the Temperance card — Kobayashi.

Then there're the wild cards. These were the Ryozanpaku cards — 8 cards (6 masters, 2 apprentices) and the yokai cards, whom he had no idea how big of a number, but considering that Nurarihyon himself was involved, he would wager there was about an army.

Lastly, the opposition. The Daimon was definitely on the other side, despite probably knowing nothing of the bigger threat. He frowned at himself for forgetting to ask the Scouts more about them. Then, the threat to the multiverse, which was still unknown to him.

Then there's the 'Man' that had caused all of this to happen. If he were to consider 'Him', he would say 'He' was not a card but a player...but would that make him the other player?

...No...Somehow, he doubted that.

After thinking for some time, he came to a conclusion that, for now, he must do whatever in his power to convert the wildcards to his side while getting rid of the unwanted opposition cards. If he were to think of all this as a game at least; he knew the real work would be harder in every imaginable sense.

Feeling he was slacking around for long enough, he got up from his bed — thought still fixed on how to process while going on about his day.

"Morning, Spottedleaf," he greeted the she-cat as the feline was drinking water from a cup. He had no idea on how she managed to A. Took a cup out of the cupboard without making anything fell over. B. Turned the valve and let the tap water filled the cup. C. Not made a single mess.

He didn't want to know.

"Greeting, Minato," she replied.

As he went to the bathroom to take care of himself, he began to wonder again at how he should approach the wildcards, especially the Kobayashi's. Despite the irregularity of human living with dragons, their life seemed so peaceful; like a father, a mother, and a daughter. Did he truly want to shatter such harmonious life?

What right did he have to destroy such peaceful existence with the chorus of the coming doom? The right as some kind of self-proclaimed herald of the end time who offered them salvation? No. He had no such right to bring an end to such precious family, the kind of family that many people on this Earth would kill for — maybe even himself at one point.

He washed his face with the coldest water the bathroom basin could freeze. He needed to think this one over. But the Ryozanpaku was not on that table.

Taken a lesson from yesterday, he believed that for the Ryozanpaku he could be truthful with them like the Sailor Scouts. The yokai, however, required a more careful approach; not all of them he would turn to his side so easily that's for sure — we're talking about a whole army with thousands of races here.

After that, he would need to ask the Scouts about the Daimon and possible methods to dispose of or convert them. He got their numbers and Line, he just needed to wait until their school end and he would rather talk with the Ryozanpaku when appropriate — after he had done their chore in the evening.

With the basic guideline clear, now all he needed to do was occupying himself until the Sun started heading West. Third Gym Badge here he came.

xxxxx

Wasting time playing Pokemon Rom-Hack and surfing internet was not exactly what people would expect their savior to be doing — then again, he was only human. It's about time to go to the Ryozanpaku. He would prefer to talk to the Elder first, and alone...well there'll be another person.

"Spottedleaf, I need your help with something," Minato told the cat across the room.

"What is it that you require?" she asked, her eyes still gazed out into the city landscape that reflected the orange shade of the setting sun.

"Whatever our next course of action would be in stopping this dimensional threat, gaining allies is an essential step. I would need your help convincing one group," the cat still did not turn around.

"How can I help with that? I am just a medicine cat," she replied bluntly.

"Your ability to talk is more than enough to make most people human jumped," she finally turned her head around, with a curious look on her visage. "Cat here don't talk, or if they did human can't understand them. Luna and Artemis are special cases."

Minato sent messages to the Scouts in the afternoon, asking a fair among of questions. Usagi, after consulting with the others, decided that most of the questions would best be answer in-person, but among those wasn't whether all cat here can talk — in which she let Luna gave a very lengthy explanation through the phone; to summarize, no.

"So you need me to scare them?"

"No. The one we are about to talk to is rather...packed," that's a strange description of the Elder.

The spotted cat sighed, "very well, it's still better than being stuck here anyway." She said as she got up and headed toward the door, Minato behind her.

xxxxx

Minato held Spottedleaf in his arm.

"Is this necessary?" she asked him while shifting in his arm, making it very clear that this was not comfortable for her in the slightest.

"Unfortunately, yes. And please don't mind them if they…" he went silent and stop whatever he was going to say.

"What is it?"

"I was about to say 'pet you', but consider that you have shaper instinct than I do maybe you would feel...threaten."

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

"They're what human called 'martial artist'. Perfecting themselves in a way of combat. Ask to end, it depends on the person. These people, well most of them, are the masters of this profession. When you mold your whole mind, body and even soul in the art of fighting, it's very hard not to be intimidating simply by standing there," the she-cat nodded cautiously to Minato's warning.

This was a bit new to her. She did know human have their own version of Warrior, but she did not imagine them to be as intimidating as Minato had described.

The bluenette pushed the main door opened and stepped into the dojo, where he was greeted by the usual scream of Kenichi.

"SAVE ME!"

There was a momentary silence between him and the cat.

"That's was their apprentice."

"Sound more like a _prey_ to me."

A third voice interrupted them, "Ah, Minato-san, you're here." It was no other than Miu. "Wait, is that a cat in your arm?" Minato simply nodded. "Aww, she's so cute," the blonde walked over to him and put her hand over Spottedleaf's head. Without even finishing a stroke, the she-cat jumped up — all her hair stood up straight.

Minato could see a clear fear in her eyes, much to his surprise considering how calm she had been so far.

"Oh dear, I scare her."

"Sorry, she wasn't used to people. Um, what do I have to do for today?" Minato knew he needed to separate Spottedleaf from people as soon as he could.

"Well, I have to go out to get something from a convenience store, so today you will have to cook."

"You have food left?" Minato asked, surprised...

"...no, the masters went out to gather them from the nearby mountain..." ...and it's gone. He nodded solemnly and walked toward the kitchen as Miu prepared to go out. On the way, he asked the obvious.

"What got your hair up? Literally."

"...that twolegs. There's something about her. As soon as she touched me, I felt as if she could kill me with a flinch of her finger." He had no idea how good Miu was with martial art, but if she wasn't being trained like Kenichi, she's definitely quite formidable. Though, how close she was to be a master, he had no idea.

"Well, we won't be running into her for a while. Just try to calm down until after dinner."

"I can't accept food from you," she pointed out or rather reminded.

"And I can't let you walk around looking for food. The dojo installed traps all over the places. They said it was to deal with 'intruders' or as a 'training.'"

"And by this 'dojo', you mean here?" Minato nodded, forgetting again that the cat didn't know most of human terms. "I never thought twolegs' way of life would be this complicated."

"Not all of us." Spottedleaf nodded in turn. "And please don't eat any animals here, they have an owner."

"Even bugs?"

"Well, an owner might be a wrong term, more like…" Minato looked behind his back and sufficed to say the mouse of the dojo, Tochumaru, was stalking him — no doubt concerning about Spottedleaf.

He laid the she-cat down before gesturing for the grey mouse to come forward. The little thing took a few moments to inspect both him and the spotted cat. It cautiously made its way toward the bluenette, yet its eyes seemed to remain solely the cat.

"Can you show her around? She could use some exercise and she prefers to...catch her own food. She hadn't eaten properly for a few days now." He would normally find a few small critters and let it run in his apartment so Spottedleaf could eat without breaking her sacred code. Then there's the cockroach; though Spottedleaf said they're the worst thing she had ever tasted in her life.

The mouse took another glance at the cat before nodded. Minato turned to Spottedleaf and nodded before walking away. Tochumaru talked to Spottedleaf; for a human it was no more than animal noise, but it was a real language in the animal kingdoms — mammal kingdom at least.

"Are you going to try and eat me?" the mouse asked bluntly.

Spottedleaf was surprised. Back home prey can't speak to the cat. Still, she came here expecting nothing but strangeness, so this was nothing.

"Minato entrusts me to understand that custom here didn't work like where I came from, so I will not" she replied. The mouse nodded.

"Very well, follow me. I might get you something to...um hunt. Do you eat bugs though?"

"Only certain types," suddenly the she-cat stomach grumbled, much to her embarrassment and annoyance. "Though now most types will do."

"Noted. I am Tochumaru, by the way," he introduced.

"Spottedleaf," she replied. He nodded.

"Don't cause any trouble to any mice and birds here and you will be fine...well, small bird at least," that was some strange implications behind that sentence.

"...noted."

xxxxx

And so the dinner past.

Minato excused himself from the table — fearing that his debt would increase if he ate more of their food. So he waited. When Miu and Apachi walked in with the dishes, he knew it was time to talk with the Elder.

"Where is Hayato?"

"Oh, Grandpa is still sitting at the table."

Just right on cue, Tochumaru led Spottedleaf back into the kitchen. She nodded, to the mouse first then at Minato. They both took off to meet with Hayato.

"Did you tell-" he was cut off.

"Just that human could understand me, that's all." She told him. He nodded as they both strolled on.

Eventually, they went through the door and saw Elder sitting still as if he was...waiting.

"You know that I am going to talk?"

"Yes, I can feel it from your cooking," there's a genuine surprise from Minato. He knew about putting soul into your cooking, but this was a bit absurd. Still, no point in delaying this then. He sat down on the opposite side.

Spottedleaf slowly climbed onto his lap, her eyes didn't leave the Elder as if she was expecting him to attack them.

"So where do you want me to begin?"

xxxxx

"Let me repeat this, you're saying there is an imminent threat that will destroy hundreds of dimensions, correct?" Minato nodded in confirmation.

This whole conversation had taken an expected turn really fast. First, he answered the Elder question about his ability to summon Personas, the 'Man' who had caused all of this, and lastly the threat. Hayato, for the most part, listened without a single expression on his face except the grim attention he was paying to the conversation.

By the end of it, even after showing Spottedleaf ability to talk, he still didn't flinch. Now Minato was the one being mildly surprised.

The Elder stroke his beard, pondering on this new information.

"I have been through a lot," the old man started. "This is not the first time anyone had asked me to save the world," somehow Minato wasn't surprised. "And frankly mankind have always been a few steps away from apocalypse. This is nothing new to me," wiseness was indeed embedded into Hayato. "However, this time it isn't like that. If mankind would bring its own end then I can at least make peace that it is our own nature that broke us, but this…" he went silent.

"There're no choices, there're no chances; we can't prevent the problem from happening, only fight it, with no guarantee of surviving afterward," Minato stated. Truth be told, he could accept humanity brought its own end as well; not that he wouldn't try to stop it. But this threat was external, it was...made by something beyond their choices and control; made with only one purpose, to end humanity and for no other reason beyond to satisfy the 'Man,' or at least Minato presumed.

Unacceptable.

"Indeed," the Elder agreed. "I will help you. But with no information at all, even I have no idea how to help beyond keeping my contacts across the globe on alert for anything suspicious."

"Actually, I got some basic plan."

"Ho," the Elder mused and finally put on a faint smile on his face.

Minato hesitated a little bit but processed with what he thought was the best idea.

"Tell me, how familiar are you with the yokai and the magical girls?"

"Not much on the latter, but I know Nurarihyon," that last bit finally threw Minato off and he let his mouth hung open a bit. Now Elder's fully smiled. "Why do you think he seems to leave you alone for so long even though he said he wouldn't? We've our history and we both know well enough not to provoke each other."

"Then can you persuade him to...join our cause?" The Elder smile recessed a little.

"We could, but we need a _real_ evidence. He's not the kind of person who would just take words for a fact, even if it is true. He has to deal with subordinates who was more than capable of tricking him. But I believe I can help with that. Now, what's this about magical girls?"

"I manage to convince one group, among many, to ally with us. But I might need to ask other groups for help as well," the Sailor Scout was not the only magical girl teams around. "I need these groups exact location, so if you could help with that."

"Understood, and is there anything else?"

Minato held his chin, thinking on what else that needed to be said. "Are there any lesser threats? The magical girls have been fighting these monsters and I think that should be resolved, either they will join us or they will be defeated. So I have to ask, are there any other major threats that needed to be taking care of?"

"Hmm, yes, but I and the Ryozanpaku have most of that covered," Hayato said. "And did you just say 'join'? Most people would prefer to destroy their enemy, you know?"

"I know, but I would like to give everything a chance or two," the reply was short and simple, there's barely any emotion in the voice in fact. For such high and noble word to be spoken so...bluntly, the Elder smile grew again.

"Really now?" Seeing the Elder smiled, Minato decided to amuse him.

"I believe everything has a right to exist, redeem, or change, after all…" his memories of SEES played out in his mind, all of it in a flash. "I got my fair share of the three." Minato allowed a faint smile to plant on his face. The Elder chuckled and his face seemed to be filled with memories as well. Eventually, the bluenette decided to get back to the topic. "If you need any help dealing with problems, please don't hesitate to ask. This threat is the priority. Thank for listening to my plight and agree to help."

"Ridiculous. This is my world. It's my duty to protect it however I can. Still, what do you intended to do next?"

"Well, first, I think I must secure this world and its inhabitant while at the same time trying to find a method to move on to other dimensions. To secure thing here, I must get Nurari-"

"Just called him Nura. He wouldn't mind," the Elder said before laughed heartily.

"...get Nura and the magical girls help. After that, I must see if there's anything else left here worth seeing then moving on to the next world while using this one as a base since I have already established an alliance of, a sort, here."

The dojo's master nodded to the plan, "A rough draft, but that seems like a good course of action, though trust me on this." Hayato smile faded completely, "there is _a lot_ to this world."

"You know something I should know?"

"Tell me, when must you get home? This will take some time."

Oh boy.


	8. 8

There is only one.

 **A/N: This will be a very short chapter because I think the next one should be cut to its own as there will be a lot revealed. Also, I think you people would need time to adjust to the idea introduced in this chapter; others stories never did this.**

Minato was not used to this feeling.

It was the feeling he had never felt since his emotion was taken away from him long ago until he joined SEES that was, and even then he had never experienced this. Throughout his young life, due to the lack of care or feeling toward anything, he had never felt this.

That feeling was frustration.

Hayato just opened his eyes to how much this world had to offer, too much.

Gods of old mythologies, demon and angel, magic, magical wells, martial art on the inhuman level, martial art mixing with magic, world-wide martial art tournament(s) (people here were _really_ obsessed with martial art for some reasons), some cloning and a few scientific stuff that try to outdoing magic. How the hell did the Elder even know all of this?![1]

"So...what now?" Spottedleaf asked.

Minato signed. He shouldn't worry her about such things. He let her roam around during the latter half of his long conversation with the Elder.

"For now, nothing. I will continue my original plan. After that, I will use what we have to try and see to other issues. If we're lucky, or unlucky, they will come to us rather the other way around. We need to organize the list of what we have to do here," Minato said.

"We?"

"Yes, I definitely couldn't do this alone. Plus this will be the perfect opportunity for you to learn about several aspects of human and help me get this...mess sorted out."

Spottedleaf nodded, somewhat uncertain that she was the right cat for the job.

The elevator opened and both of them headed out. Minato glared at Kobayashi's door...

He would think of this later. For now, he would settle for a full night rest.

xxxxx

The following day, Minato asked the Sailor Scouts if they could have a group talked again. They all agree, but it had to be in the evening after the school was over and it must not be too long as they must be home on time.

So to kill the time, he decided to try and organize the information he got from the Elder. He also made sure to call Miu that he had a really important business for today and won't be able to help out at the dojo. So for the rest of the day, he and Spottedleaf got everything onto a notebook. And as promised, he was sure to teach Spottedleaf as much as could.

By the time he looked at the clock again, it was nearly time to talk with the Sailor Scouts.

'I should prepare some snack and tea,' he thought before went off to do just that. Before that though, he noticed Spottedleaf moved into his bedroom.

"Don't want to meet them?"

That question caused the she-cat to pause for a moment, but she marched on and went out of sight. Minato sighed. Even if he wanted to help, ultimately, only she could forgive them.

As if timed, the doorbell rang as soon as he finished preparing the snack. He went to the door and turned the handle. On the other side was indeed the Sailor Scout, but with an addition of another cat - this one much younger - a young girl, and a guy. He felt like he could make some kind of joke out of this.

"Good evening," he greeted; surprised, but not really.

"Good evening, we kind of brought in more people who need to hear about this," Minato nodded to that and moved in to make space for his guests to enter.

Once the five Scouts crammed onto the couch. This time even worse because the new young girl with pink hair in a style that was almost identical to Usagi decided to sit on the group leader's lap. He took a tray of snack and put it on the coffee table in front of them.

"Oh my, you don't have to," Ami tried to decline.

"Too late for that," Makoto spoke up and pointed at their supposed leader, who already started munching on a piece of Senbei.

"Well, I wouldn't try to keep you here for long, so please." Minato gestured at the three newcomers, one of which standing behind the group, looking out to the landscape.

"I'm Mamoru Chiba. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said and turned away from the view. His face was quite stoic; not on the same level as Minato, but it is certainly made it hard to read.

"Likewise," he replied before looking at the girl and the cat on Usagi's lap.

"I'm Chibiusa Tsukino and this is Diana," she gestured at the kitty.

"Hi!" the little grey cat greeted.

"Well then…" Minato paused then shifted his eyes from the Scouts to Chiba. "Anything on your mind?"

"I see that you do have experience in reading people," he supposed he did. "Well, I will be honest then, about all this multiverse threat. I don't believe you."

"Eh!" the girls exclaimed in unison.

"Oh please, ladies, you just accept his word without much thought. Beyond the fight that you girls describe, there's no further evidence that what he said is true. Unless, of course, you could prove it," Chiba finished, though the tone sounded challenging he wasn't; not intentionally at least. The girls seemed to shift uncomfortably in their seat.

Minato's eyes strangely softened. This man was, unbelievably, the first person who ever questioned him, even the Elder didn't do that. This surprised him, in a good way. He would really get suspicious if literally, everyone believed there was a multiverse threat without asking for the evidence.

As for how he would deal with this. It's simple. Just showed him the evidence.

"Very well, but this might look a bit...shocking," he said.

The group leaned forward, eyeing him in anticipation.

He pulled out his Evoker and, without a second to waste, aimed it at his head.

The group immediately panic, even Chiba broke his stoic visage. Usagi covered Chibi Moon's eyes while the others tried to reach for Minato.

But they were too late. He pulled the trigger.

A whirlpool that seemed to be made of stardust materialized behind him. They all froze. He could even feel Spottedleaf's eyes watching in shock from behind the half-closed door.

Before long, a form emerged.

 **I am thou... Thou art I...**

A form of a woman.

 **From the sea of thy soul, I come...**

Her hair and dress were in the color of the moon with her skin so fair one could mistake in from the pure whiteness of the moon as well.

 **I am Queen of the Moon Kingdom and the Protector of its citizen.**

She seemed to emit a sphere of blurry white light; almost remind anyone who looked at her of the full moon.

 **...and a loving mother who missed her daughter so dearly.**

They all couldn't believe it.

 **I am Queen Serenity.**

His visitors were all frozen. Their mouth hung open in disbelief at the sight of a stranger so familiar. A feeling, strange feeling, washed over them all - well except Minato and Spottedleaf of course.

"Q-Queen Serenity," Luna was the one to broke the silence.

The Persona of a once great queen picked her old friend and held her tightly in her arm,

 **Of course, my dear friend. It'd been so long.**

She said as she gently stroked the black cat, whose eyes produce a small trail of tear at the warmth she had thought never to experience again. The queen then turned her attention toward the Scouts.

 **Oh, and how can I forget you all, especially you.**

The Queen levitated her way toward Usagi before gently placing her hand on her reincarnated daughter's cheek.

A small trail of tear leaked from Sailor Moon's eyes, "Mother." She muttered.

Even though she had never met this strange woman all her life. Even though, the mother she had known all her life was the mother that had given birth to her. Even though she tried not to, she still called this woman her mother. Serenity only smiled at her daughter.

She turned her attention toward another old friend of her,

 **Is this enough proof for you, Prince Endymion?**

He stiffly nodded. Having regained his past life memory allowed him to fully comprehend who this woman was, and how it was impossible, by any means, for her to be here, yet he just knew it was her.

 **Oh mind, speechless isn't suiting you, my prince.**

Finally, she wiped away the tear of her daughter and her old feline friend before putting Luna back down.

 **I believed this will be all?**

The bluenette only nodded.

 **I will see you later then, Messiah.**

Minato blinked at the name, but before he could question why she called him that she was already gone.

He turned to the still dumbfounded group.

"So...about those questions and requests…"

xxxxx

[1] Consider this world Modern Magic focus world, but no Twilight and/or City of Bone; no, never. Ask for what are we going to be seeing, well, I suppose you could guess from the elements I just said.


	9. 9

There is only one.

 **A/N: Seriously people, please leave some reviews; it would help catch more audiences attention. I live on attention here. *chuck a pint filled with attention***

The Sea of Soul. It was a strange place. It existed as a place, yet it didn't. It flew like water, yet it was solid. And its inhibitors, they had no form, yet they still had form.

While most soul would simply pass through to an afterlife or met with grimmer fates, a few would be held here. These souls were those that the collective consciousness of humanity refused to let go. The legends from the bygone eras, the figures that left such impact that every human being heard of them, the lost mythologies kept only as fairy tales, and many more.

They're all here.

One such figure was Maia, the daughter of Atlas and Pleione in Ancient Greek mythology. She was sitting and standing while thinking over the recent development. The most powerful Persona user, the one that called - or Messiah, and the holder of Universe Arcana was dealing with this multiverse threat.

While she would help in whatever ways she could, but she could help but felt that there was something strange about the boy. Well, not the boy himself, but something seemed to 'stain' him; for the lack of better words. At first, it slowly faded away, but on the day he met Spottedleaf this 'stain' reemerged.

One of the things Messiah wanted to know was who's the 'Man' that had set this chain of events into motion. She felt strangely familiar with this 'stain', which was no doubt had something to do with the 'Man.'

She had been thinking over this for a while now, trying to recall whatever she could. However, the Persona user himself was talking and the voice seemed to be leaking through — it distracted her. These girls were a little bit annoying.

Girls…

Girl…

Stain…

Girl...stain...Persona user...

Girl...Persona user...stain…'Man'

...

She got it!

She recalled who was the 'Man.' It was so long ago that she had almost forgotten, but no one could truly forget that memorable adventure. She must get the attention of - at once, he needed to know this - he needed to-

"That won't be necessary." A new voice joined in. She turned to see no other than the blad long-nosed caretaker of the Velvet room, Igor. Unlike her, he had a form without having no form.

"Igor? Why are you here?" Maia asked.

"Well, you see..." as he said that the Sea of Soul began to shake. "We will be undergoing some...renovation," a grin creeped onto his face.

xxxxx

Minato lied down on his bed.

Today was exhausting.

The questioning didn't yield as much result as he had hoped. But the origin of the Daimon definitely raised some concern. Apparently, they were servants of some outer space entity. He could barely explore Earth alone, much less other versions of Earth, and now there's a space overlord heading this way. Just perfect.

Though from how casual the Scouts answered his question on the subject, he felt that he could leave this issue to them; much like what the Elder said. He would put his faith in them then.

On the plus side, they agreed to talk with others magical girls groups. Still, any groups outside Tokyo might have to wait until the Golden Week. [1]

With today done, he closed his eyes and drifted off...to a place in the older time.

xxxxx

He opened his eyes, expecting the sunlight shining through the window as usual. This was the second time he was disappointed.

Instead, he found himself in a familiar elevator; sitting in the same chair he did all those months ago. But there was no table on his opposite side; no Igor, no Elizabeth, nothing.

He was quite confused, but not as confused as when the elevator, after endlessly descending in all his visits, finally 'ding' and came to a halt. From beyond the gates, he could hear a familiar opera music. The Poem Of Everyone's Soul.

As the gates parted and dim violet light slowly leaking through the crack, he braced himself for whatever on the other side. But he could not have brace enough for what he was about to witness.

On the other side was a bar, inhabited by the Personas. Some of them were drinking at the counter, some were at tables chatting with other Personas, and some were playing cards and others such games.

The atmosphere was identical to the Velvet Room he knew. Dim purplish light shore in the gloomy air and color. The reflection of those violet light when they made contact with the bottles of alcohol on the shelf near the bar served to illuminate and highlighted the drinking counter as the most prominent spot in the room.

While the room was somewhat huge and uneven in shape, there seemed to be a stage on the opposite side of the counter with a woman currently performing; singing The Poem Of Everyone's Soul.

"Ah! Here is the man of the hour!" From the counter shouted the thunder god of Norse as he noticed Minato.

"Or you could say 'Dark Hour,'" The Norse trickster god interrupted with a pun.

"Bah, your joke is terrible, Loki," the one-eyed god of the Norse added.

Suffice to say, the whole room turned to him to greet his arrival after that. Some raised their glasses, some waved, and some nodded. There was one table, however, that beckoned for him to come over.

The one who did so look eerily similar to...

He moved across the room, taking in the sight of figures of good and evil, real and mythical, one culture to another, mingling with each other.

He finally arrived at the table. "Orpheus," he greeted his first Persona.

Unlike when he was summoned, Orpheus actually looked like a normal human in greek toga while at the same time still had the same facial features as to when he was a machine-like Persona. Actually, that applied to just about every Personas in the room, it's like they reverted back to their more rooted form.

"Greeting, - ," the bluenette blinked. He was sure Orpheus had just spoken his name, but he couldn't hear it. "Please have a seat." The musician gestured at the empty seat between Jack Frost and Thanatos.

"Frost," the bluenette greeted the little snowman as he took a seat. "Thanatos."

"Look alive, boy," the Greek God of Death, now looked like a gloomy man in a black toga with long midnight hair, returned the greeting with irony before taking a sip from his glass of whiskey. "It had been awhile since I got any exercise, maybe summon me next time, hmm? I yearn to reap souls once again."

"I will consider it," Thanatos replied with a 'hn.' "Is this what it's like in the Sea of Soul?" Minato asked Orpheus.

"Well, only recently," the musician answered.

"I am not complaining," another occupant of the table, Surt, the fire giant, now just a regular human-like giant with long messy red beard and hair and literal flames in his eyes, added as he began shuffling a deck of cards; seemingly prepared to play with the others on the table.

"None of us do."

"So...why am I here?" Minato asked the most important question.

"Well…" the lyre player was about to answer when he suddenly went pale.

"I will be the one to answer that," a voice said from behind Minato.

At that voice, several Personas around him jumped, including the like of Thanatos, Surt, Hera...Uriel...and Lucifer.

"Get her away from us!" Thanatos yelled at the top of his lung as he crawled away. His fellow Personas all around the source of the voice had the same reaction. Jack Frost hugged Minato in fear.

The bluenette turned around and was greeted by a young girl. With her long platinum hair and golden eyes, the similarity to Elizabeth was quite clear.

"Greeting, Messiah," that name again. "We're Lavenza, the new assistance of Velvet Room. The masters would see you now."

Minato nodded.

She led him far to the back of the room where a large gate was located. She pushed it open with ease despite her small size. Inside was much darker than the bar, with only candles on the side of several large pillars that seemed to stretch infinitely upward could guide them toward their destination. They stepped through and walked into the dim hall as the door behind them seemed to close itself.

As they strolled on, Minato asked something he wanted to know.

"Where's Elizabeth?"

"Our sister left the Velvet Room in search for a mean to free you from the Great Seal," ah, he knew she would. "We had already contacted her. She will return to us soon. It will take a while, however, too long then they are willing to wait," she explained.

"You mean Igor?"

"No, the true master of the Velvet Room." Well, that was ominous. He had a feeling the answer to this question would have to wait until he met this 'Master.' Still, he had another question.

"Why are the Personas so afraid of you?"

"Umm...let's just say that there was a short period when fusing Persona was a little bit...brutal."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Minato raised an eyebrow.

"We... rather not recall that if you do not mind." With that, he was forced to drop the subject and could only walk along with Lavenza.

Eventually, he saw something ahead, a table in the middle of columns arranged in a circle and its long-nosed occupant, Igor.

"Ah, welcome back to the Velvet Room. No introduction needed this time, good Messiah."

Alright, now he really needed an answer to why every Persona seemed to call him that. He took a seat and, after a knowing gesture from Igor, asked, "Why is everyone calling me 'Messiah'?"

"It's rather simple really. Do you notice that your 'Messiah' Persona was not in the Velvet Bar?"

Great, now they were Velvet Bar and Velvet Room, but back to the question. He was sure he didn't find Messiah back in the bar so he shook his head.

"Messiah is a Persona created by you. You _are_ the person that become Messiah, but you come back from the dead. Thus instead of being a separate entity as before, you and Massiah have become one and the same again. You are him and he is you…I am thou and thou am I, I supposed. Of course, you can still summon him, but don't expect him to have a mind of his own as long as you still draw breath."

That was one questions down, now onto the _real_ question. He was about to ask about the 'Man', but Igor held his hand up.

"I know what you're going to ask, however, for this one it would be my master who answers you. Please looks after our guest until our master arrives, Lavenza. I am still recovering from our latest...ordeal."

"Of course, Master Igor," Lavenza heeded her command with a slight bow.

Igor seemed to slowly fade out of existence and, just like that, he was gone.

Minato turned to the still-smiling Lavenza. Since he shouldn't ask about what happened before he came back that left him with very few topics he could discuss with her...hmm

"So you're Elizabeth, Margaret, and Theodore sister?"

"Oh, We did not know you have met our other siblings, beyond Elizabeth of course," she expressed her surprise.

"Yes, I did. It was a rather...strange experience." [2]

"We see," Another silence fell.

Fuck it, he was curious and really tired of thinking of off topic banters.

"So what did Igor mean by 'ordeal'?" Lavenza shifted her eyes and arms around.

"Well...there was a...takeover of the Velvet Room for a little while," Minato's eyes widen a little. It's hard to imagine somewhere like Velvet Room to be taken over. "But it's over now, thanks to him."

He didn't need to guess much, "another Fool?"

"Another Fool," she nodded in confirmation. "If it wasn't for him the world would have perished." Lavenza blushed lightly. The Messiah's lips curled into a little smile. He was glad that even when he was gone someone would still come forward to save the world.

A blue butterfly came into the view, out of nowhere if he might add.

"Oh mind, he's here." The blue insect flew around for a while. "Of course, master. We shall prepare some tea," the girl said before went off into the darkness of the room, out of his sight.

The blue majestic creature landed on the chair opposite to him which Igor had previously occupied.

Minato blinked. In just one blink, a man was now in that chair.

He had long black hair tied into a ponytail. Most of his facial features were covered under a white mask with a butterfly wing extended from its left side.

"Greeting, Messiah." The man's voice was soothing, but something felt unnatural about it. "I am glad we are finally able to talk like this. Simply guiding you as a butterfly was a little bit boring."

Lavenza reemerged with a tray in her arm. She laid the silverware down on the table before began serving the two. A plate of biscuits, small cups of milk, sugar cubes, and mint leaves, and, of course, cups of tea - normal tea.

Despite the calm atmosphere, the bluenette couldn't help but get a bad reminiscence to when he met the 'Man.'

"Oh yes, he was quite dreadful when it comes to entertaining his guest," and...he could read his mind too. At that, the Master shrugged.

"I am Philemon, the Master of the Velvet Room. We had met once, at the start of your quest to stop Nyx." Minato nodded.

"Yes, there's the same kind of feeling coming from you like that night."

"I am glad you remember, but I will have to be quick with our conversation. First, I can assure you that you would not have to meet the 'Man' outside of your dream. That's, of course, if you manage to stop the threat to The Cluster."

"What's this threat?"

"Straightforward, but I can't answer that," Minato narrowed his eyes. "Tell me, what do you think gods, _real_ Gods, is like?" The Persona user was silenced for a moment, but he replied.

"Powerful."

"Simply and true. I and the 'Man' belonged into this category. Because, truly, how else do you think I manage to create a place where the lesser gods of human mythologies became a tool for mortals to use?" Rhetorical question.

"How is this have to do with anything?" Minato asked before taking a bite out of his biscuit. Philemon, after sipping a tea, replied.

"It is to make you grasp what level the being that had freed you is on. He was my equal and vice-versa. If one of us is to fight the other, it will result in half of the observable multiverse being destroyed before we stop simply because too many things that we both like will perish in the fight. We know this; we know of our limbo dilemma before it even starts. That's why we came up with a system between the two of us," he paused and sipped another tea.

"We make bets. Let's the mortal fight in our place," sound like classic gods to him. "True, it's not as if we didn't act like those lesser deities from time-to-time, but let us not go off the point here. The way we approach this is different too. While I gifted the mortals the power of Persona or other boons, he would summon an avatar from thousand of his forms to act as his champion. The last time we bet, however, my champions had managed to...workaround and imprisoned him for quite some time. But now he's back, as you might know," Minato nodded, showing that he's still followed the story.

"The thing is...this time he _cheats_ ," the smile on his visage that had been there since the conversation begin started to fade. "He prepared our new betting table to be in his favor. Of course, I caught on and, well, here we are." Now, this is the part he didn't understand.

"What do you mean by 'new betting table,?'

"Simple really. Supposedly by fate, you would be freed by Elizabeth from the Great Seal without destroying it. But my nemesis came back and proposed another bet, whether your new quest will succeed or fail - basically. With that, I allowed him to free you and sent you here. But he did not tell me that there _is_ a way for him to directly get involved. For that, I called him out and he had to give me handicaps."

Minato was silent. There's something boiling up inside him. Something he felt before, albeit deeply. When Shinjiro died, when all his friends were hurt, when Aigis was hurt. Anger.

"Human are not chips and dice for you to use as you please."

Philemon nodded, "Yes, from a mortal perspective it would look like that. But I am benevolent in my own way. Despite not getting involve myself, I have saved countless universes from my nemesis by interfering with his plan using our little system. Like it or not, this is better than either we fight or I let you all perish."

Minato sighed. He would not accept this, but he was not here to argue about that.

"So directly intervene is the handicaps?"

"Yes," the reply was strong. "The 'cheat' isn't something that cannot be removed without upsetting other entities that's as strong as both of us. So I am allowed a chance to directly intervene as well."

"So why not tell me about this threat? Why choose to clarify things up rather than helping me," the bluenette questioned.

"Nothing is simple. I do tell you and I will be violating my agreement with my rival. Besides, I am helping, or would you rather not hear about a mean to get to other dimensions," Minato's ears perked at that. "and perhaps toward a few other Arcanas? You have met Serenity, no?" Minato nodded. "Well, there's more where that came from, so keep creating Social Link, or Confidant as it is called now, and you will get more power. Don't be afraid to tell the truth about your situation to potential allies. Your enemy is omnipotent, he knows everything. Plus when the end comes, the only difference your choices of secrecy will make is whether people will die fighting or running; telling is more beneficial than not," that's not very reassuring by any extent. "Now, I think it's time our talk came to a close. I have almost spent more time with you than my rival had; he would mock me if I excess him."

The God leaned forward.

 **Find a time-traveling well in Tokyo. Travel through it then find a girl named Kagome.**

His voice...it's almost like the 'Man,' only the malevolent had been replaced by...great, cold, and immense uncaringness.

 **Follow her, and by the time you return to your base dimension you would find:**

Philemon held up three fingers.

 **The Devil, the Judgement, and the Wheel of Fortune.**

 **Along with a mean to safely traverse dimensions.**

 **Say 'hi' to that degenerate scientist and HP for me.**

With the last word spoken, the whiteness consumed Minato's world. The last thing he heard was a farewell word from Lavenza.

xxxxx

Minato opened his eyes. This dream visitors were getting really annoying.

He got up from his bed and reached for his cell phone. The contact he rang to is obvious.

"Hello? Kensei-san? This is Minato. Yes. I am fine, I just have an appointment with friends yesterday. Thank you. Could you hand the phone to the Elder, please? I need to speak with him."

xxxxx

 **A/N: I will give you some hint for the three Arcana. The Devil is from** **a** **cartoon, have white hair, and name begins with 'R'. The Wheel of Fortune is** **from** **a game, dressed purple, and name begin with 'S.' The Judgement...meh, even if I hint it, you people still wouldn't know who she was, that anime was good but a bit obscure. HP is not one of the Arcana.**

[1] Golden Week is a week off for all Japanese, consider it a holiday exclusive to Japan.

[2] Persona Q is funny but weird. And it's weirder when they considered it is canon.


End file.
